Don't Dream It's Over
by Wai-Jing Waraugh
Summary: Labyrinth/Sandman crossover-Jareth asks Morpheus to shape a dream Sarah can't refuse.However, it doesn't turn out to be the dream he intended her to see.Meanwhile Sarah sees signs that Jareth is in her reality.Will her dreams change her feelings for him?
1. Chapter 1

**Don't Dream it's Over**

_Author's Note: This story is a crossover between Jim Henson's _Labyrinth_ and Neil Gaiman's _Sandman_ graphic novel series, although it deals more with _Labyrinth's_ characters. None of the lead characters belong to me. In terms of continuity, this fanfic doesn't link up with the _Return to the Labyrinth manga_, though it may borrow aspects from it; I'm not sure yet. It may also touch on the story in Bowie's film clip for _As the World Falls Down_._

_The title is taken from the song of the same name, written by Neil Finn and originally performed by his band, Crowded House._

_Currently rated K+ for mild swearing and some slight adult themes which may later occur, if you're lucky :P_

_Edit: since it was first published, this chapter has been amended. The first version was a bit clunky, and minor details were added as I fleshed out the plot further. It's still fundamentally the same plot-wise; however I think this new version reads better.  
_

_Please enjoy my interpretation ~ W.J._

* * *

**Chapter One**

_*Now your smile is spreading thin  
__Seems you're trying not to lose  
__Since I'm not supposed to lose  
__All you've got to do is win*_

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Matthew fluttered his feathers irritably. He had been trying to retain his most regal pose upon a pillar for nearly two hours now. The Dream King highly valued a dignified visage in his servants when undertaking official duties. Matthew was awaiting a guest of the Dream King's, and had been assigned to greet the distinguished personage; that is, when he finally cared to grace the Dreaming with his presence.

"Damn pretentious stuffiness." Matthew hopped on the spot, unfolding and refolding his wings restlessly. "I've served long enough to no longer be relegated to playing 'page boy'; I should be above putting on such ostentatious displays of-"

A sharp sound like a sail whipped about by the breeze split the stillness of the foyer. Matthew whirled, startled, as he recognized the sound of a fellow bird banking against an updraft. Preparing to land.

A large bird alighted regally in the centre of the foyer, looking incongruous in the expanse of the great floor. It was white with a flat, pale face, a slender black beak, and two eyes which, as the owl swivelled its head right around to fix Matthew with a piercing stare, were two mismatched shades of blue, one darker than the other. Both were strange colours to see in a bird's eyes. The barn owl rearranged its sleek plumage and strode across the floor, its long black talons clicking on the hard surface, with the jaunty tread of a nobleman on parade. Its reflection in the floor's slick surface, contrary with its size and colouring, swirled around it like the hem of a mystic cape trailing behind it, expanding swiftly and full of glimmering colours. The Dreaming was like that; reality had no place here, and nothing was as it seemed. As someone would soon find out.

"Hey! You!" Matthew's harsh croak of indignation interrupted this strange parody of a king's swaggering gait. He took to the air, rising upward, then began a sharp descent, directed at this unexpected intruder. He continued to mutter all the while: "You can't just waltz in here! There's room for only one bird here! Damn sight-seers! That griffin at the gate isn't doing his job, letting anyone just float in-"

"You're right, there is room for only one bird here," a haughty voice replied unexpectedly, making Matthew hesitate, startled, in mid-swoop. "Or rather, only one bird-brain. At least said-griffin knows how to do his job properly, and when to keep his beak shut."

The talons which had been about to drop on the intruder instead hit some round and hard which skittered under Matthew's weight. He fluttered madly and managed to deposit himself inelegantly on the floor. Staring about with one beady eye, he saw what had slipped him up; a glass orb, which, disturbed by his impact with it, rolled sedately across the floor as though down a gentle incline, though the palace's entrance hall was a vast, flat and featureless expanse. Then it unexpectedly jumped upwards, and was caught, not by a black talon, but by a similarly claw-like hand clad in sombre black leather. Gone was the cloak of snow-white feathers; the reflection on the floor had rearranged itself into the semblance of a man, the corporal twin of which stood poised in the centre of the hall, the orb in his hand clutched with a possessive air of authority, a short cane topped with a similar crystal held in his other hand like a sceptre. Ornate lace, reminiscent of the feathers he had worn moments ago, spilled over his wrists from beneath a pearly-white, shimmering frock coat, and adorned his throat in a frothy cravat. In old-fashioned culottes and knee-high boots, he had an air of aristocracy. Framed by a shock of unruly blonde hair, a handsome, slender-featured face peered down at Matthew with an expression that was part regal-disdain, part feral-snarl. The mismatched eyes, though both the same hue, were startling; while the left, cobalt-blue one stared piercingly down at Matthew, the other, lighter iris looked out at the middle distance, as though it were bored with the sumptuous vaulting halls and gazed instead into an unseen horizon; into a world of imperceptible dreams.

"Er, you wouldn't be His Majesty, Jareth of the Labyrinth, Goblin King and Ruler of the Underground, would you?" Matthew inquired nervously. _If he was, and the Dream King found out what he had just said…_

"He is indeed," A third voice answered from just behind Matthew; he winced. It was shot with cool disapproval.

Another figure had appeared in the hall, so suddenly, and yet standing in the great airy expanse of the hall with such perfect self-assurance that it seemed he had been there all along. Unlike Jareth's brash egotism, his was a quiet confidence, an air of righteousness and benevolent royalty. He similarly wore what looked like riding clothes from the era of _le Roi Soleil_ with an added eccentric flair – a glossy satin shirt all made of lace ruffles and flounces; a velvet frock coat which absorbed all the shiny fabric's lustre, so rich was its blackness; black breeches and high black leather boots. Between shirt and coat he wore a simple black waistcoat, from which a single ruby hung on a silver watch chain. A glimmer was visible from beneath the heavy mane of hair which fell over his eyes like thread spun of obsidian; a briefly-shining light like a single star within pupils which, even compared to the hue of his entire outfit, seemed darker still. As the two monarchs faced each other across the floor, they appeared like alternate versions of each other, dark and light.

"We welcome you to the Hearth of the Dreaming," Morpheus, King of All Night's Dreaming, intoned officiously, using the royal pronoun and making a slight bow which was every inch both accommodating and dignified. "You are dismissed, Matthew," he added in a curt aside.

"Yes, Milord. Sorry Milord, your Majesty." Matthew, looking sheepish, bowed until his beak nearly touched the ground, then swiftly took off, disappearing beyond the foyer's seemingly limitless walls.

"To repeat an already trite phrase, it is so hard to find good help these days," Jareth observed and smiled wryly, thinking of his raucous court of goblins and the woeful reception they would have given if roles of host and guest had been reversed.

"He means well, and he is useful in some ways. Come, refresh yourself after your journey. Preparations have been made."

Morpheus ushered Jareth into a smaller chamber where a table had been set with a pitcher and goblets. Jareth sprawled casually in his chair as was his wont, and the Dream King set a goblet at his elbow. Jareth took it graciously, eyed the livid orange fluid somewhat warily, then sipped. He started with mild surprise, and a chagrined look came upon his face, thin lips twisting sardonically.

_Peach nectar. It is sweet, yet also a bit tart. Refreshing. And quite ironic._

"You have need of my assistance, my friend," the Dream King stated, recalling him from his reverie. Jareth grimaced.

"It brings me shame to come to you in need, grateful as I am for your hospitality. A monarch should be proud; should silently toil on his knees, suffering with dignity, until he claws his way back to his rightful position. I have great respect for your having done so after your unfortunate sojourn in the mortal realm."

Morpheus shrugged, a gesture of polite modesty. "Mortals are not all they are said to be; most, though volatile, are fundamentally weak. They do not realize their place in the greater scheme of things, beyond their realm, and therefore cannot affect or even truly comprehend anything beyond it. Their motives are purely selfish; and hence, my captors were simple to manoeuvre into defeat. I believe your problem also involves humans."

The Goblin King didn't respond right away. Brooding silently, he stared darkly into his goblet for a time, at last depositing it on the table beside him with a clang.

"Humans!" he hissed between clenched teeth. "Such a foolish race!" Despite his vehemence, there was a tragic sadness in his eyes, which were rimmed with dark circles, and his face was pale to the point of being unhealthily wane; it was clear that his outburst was not quite genuine, but more a bluster to conceal deeper emotions which had been running close to the surface of late. Morpheus waited patiently whilst Jareth stared at his boots, collecting himself. When he finally spoke, not bothering to look up, he didn't use his usual arrogant tone; his voice was surprisingly low, almost sulky, and tempered by shame.

"There is a woman…"

The Dream King paused to take in these words, then set down his goblet with an almost imperceptible nod. _Weren't most of the realms' woes caused by women? _The same applied to himself, and he was not proud of the fact. He sympathized with Jareth. He continued to listen as the goblin haltingly spoke on.

"A woman named Sarah Williams, from the human realm. She was beautiful, talented, radiant in her youth, so very alive. Such a dreamer. She knew our world, would have been in her rightful place had she chosen to live among us, as my queen. I attempted to woo her, a little over four months ago now. I thought I had provided her with everything she had ever wanted. She was, at the time, a damsel in distress, an ill-used heroine, discontented in her mundane human life, burdened with things she longed more than anything else to be free of. And so, I freed her. I rescued her; I removed her obstacles, and took her away, laying my very kingdom at her feet." He waved his black-attired hand with a graceful flourish; in an instant, another clear crystal orb appeared, poised on his fingertips. Inside it appeared to be a tiny nucleus, which gradually grew and grew until it filled the sphere, becoming a whole world. The Dream King could see the spire of a fine castle, looking as though it had been carved from a single column of tawny-brown rock. At its base, the walls of the castle seemed to divulge and twist and turn into the ground in a tangled, knotted mass, like the roots of a great tree. Between them, dim passageways of seemingly infinite length were visible. The Labyrinth.

"Every desire she had, I satiated," Jareth continued, gazing at it absently, holding it aloft like a sacred vessel. "Every whim, I catered to. Every task she willed, I performed. When she could no longer stand the strain her family imposed upon her, I removed them; I took her brother away where he could no longer squander her loved ones' affections. When the idea of banishing him forever startled her, I wasn't offended that she regretted the use of my services. I gave her a choice; I showed her my kingdom, and let her choose whether she wanted to give up her harsh reality for the utopia I offered her. I consoled her with a gift of her fantasies made real, of a world where she could leave her drudgery for the preferable delights of her imagination; where she could live in dreams."

The image in the crystal changed. It became a single round room a-whirl with movement, dancers dressed in sumptuous costume and fantastic masks spinning around its perimeter like stars in a solar system. Slowly the dancers drew outward and passed beyond the edges of the sphere, disappearing beyond it; a gracefully turning couple in the centre of the room grew larger until they became its sole occupants. One was a graceful, waif-like girl clad in a shimmering white, bell-shaped gown which showed off her creamy complexion and dark locks, delicate silver ribbons and leaves wound whimsically into her hair, giving her the appearance of a woodland nymph. She was dancing with an equally elegant figure in full formal attire, who with adept steps and protective arms guided his partner in a sweeping slow dance. This figure was a miniature, identical version of Jareth. The real goblin king watched his sliver of semblance turn with its beautiful partner in the midst of the orb. His left eye, as though to match his emotions, had darkened to a shady of navy very near to black; his gaze, always piercing, hardened even more until it became trenchant. The black-gloved digits likewise tightened on the crystal, leather squeaking on glass; for a moment, his hand trembled, then with a crash the sphere shattered within his tightening grasp, the vision of the dancers disappearing abruptly like a flame snuffed from a candle. As soon as it broke, the shards of the orb melted into the ether, and Jareth was left with his empty fist tightly clenched. His voice was dangerously steely.

"After all I had done, she rejected me, begged me to return her to her life of misery and hardship. I had given her all I had to give, and she threw it carelessly back in my face as though it were nothing. She taunted me, ridiculed me. _'You have no power over me.'_ Those were her exact words. I did everything in my power to please her, woo her, soften her heart. All for nothing. She only tore me to pieces her cruel words. I weakened to her indomitable will. I sent her back to the drudgery she professed to long for, together with her precious sibling, whom she had claimed to despise. I watched her give a fete in her chambers for her helpers, celebrating her triumph and lauding my loss, my humiliation. I had offered her my many possessions, my boundless favour, my total adoration, but she would take none of it. I had given and given, but she would not receive. What was left for me to do?" He dropped his empty hand heavily onto the table beside him. The goblet and its contents toppled over, but he didn't notice; his head was bent in misery which was barely veiled by a strained composure. _"What was left… for me to do…?"_ he said again faintly.

"What would you have me do?" the Dream King asked after a time, after he had remained sufficiently silent to acknowledged Jareth's tale of woe. With a wave of his hand, the streaks of spilt drink on the table melted away; the goblet righted itself. "How can I be of any service in these affairs?"

Jareth turned to face him with a wild look of desperate hope in his mismatched eyes. "I tried to tempt her with her dreams, but they were not enough. Though my realm was intertwined with her dreams, though she glimpsed snatches of it and pined to possess it, when I opened the door wide to her, she turned away. I have nothing else I can offer her, and so I resolved to acquire more." He looked pointedly at Morpheus. "You are the King of All Dreams, the Lord Shaper. My command of dreams is haphazard, weak and ineffective compared to your grand mastery." Morpheus acknowledged this flattery with a slight inclination of his head. "You can help me to shape a dream which she cannot refuse, which encompasses all her desires. I alone have not the skill, nor the insight to be all things to her; but with your help, I can finally win her. Please, please, I beg of your assistance – without you, I can achieve nothing, and she will remain lost to me." Jareth bowed as low as his seat would let him, his head bent in humble supplication. It was astounding to see the once overly-proud monarch pleading to another with such humility.

Morpheus frowned deeply, the stark white forehead furrowing in almost invisible creases, like snow upon a ploughed field. "You flatter undeservedly, and you ask assistance of the wrong person," he murmured, making Jareth look up in surprise. "I can tell a similar tale to yours. Once I had a woman whom I adored. I loved her; I thought I loved her utterly, and she likewise did me. Just like you, I offered her everything – my kingdom, my adulation, all that I could offer her. And like you, I was rejected." Dream folded his skinny arms across his slim frame broodingly, his voice full of bitterness. Jareth listened intently, seeing the parallel between their predicaments.

"Unlike you, I was not gracious. I denounced her, branded her ungrateful, a traitor, and condemned her to the worst punishment I could inflict: I sent her to the torments of Hell. That was ten thousand years ago. She remains there still."

He stopped. No more was needed to be said. All knew of Hell, had heard of its horrors, its harshness, its savagery; there was no need to explain. The Goblin King gazed at his contemporary in stupefied awe; his soul shivered within him. Even he was not so heartless, even he had a shred more humility. The depth of the Dream King's resentment, the pain and anguish that had prompted this action, left him stunned.

"You must have loved her very much," he uttered softly, respectfully.

"I did." Morpheus' tone was quiet, relentless. He turned to look at his guest, and his eyes seemed like portals to an empty, airless space, devoid of any warmth, of any spark of life. "Lord Jareth, do not think that you can sway a woman's heart with material wealth alone. I offered her – Nada – the entire Dreaming. Anything she wanted, anything she desired, I would have fashioned for her from the fabric of the Dreaming itself and presented to her on a silver platter. But she asked me for the one thing I could not willingly give her: Freedom. I was not as compassionate as you; what she truly desired, the only thing she asked for from me, I could not bring myself to give to her. I was so cruel to her."

Dream's words were painfully frank. Slightly embarrassed, Jareth tried to reassure him. "A king must keep his dignity. Our first priority is our kingdom, it is our greatest responsibility. We must give ourselves first and foremost to our duties. If we lose ourselves, our kingdom loses us as well, and it suffers in our stead."

Dream shook his head shamefully. "I would have lost nothing by giving up my pride, by admitting I had lost her. I acted out of selfishness. I… I was_ wrong_."

The Dream King's voice had dropped until it was barely audible; he seemed to be talking to himself. Jareth remained respectably silent, a part of him outraged and embarrassed by Morpheus' claims. A king was never wrong; he always knew what was best, and none could question his word. His word was the very law of the kingdom; it governed all existence. And yet, here were two great, once-proud kings, sitting side by side in shared defeat, airing their sadnesses to each other. How could two kings be conquered by… by…

"Desire," Dream said softly, his voice suddenly carrying a softly-spoken malice, "is a dangerous thing."

He remembered, a dinner held not long ago in dusty halls; six people of strikingly contrasting appearance, yet all of the same family gathered around the table, as a single rich, sensuous voice, high in triumph and brashly loud spoke over the heads of the others while he stood alone, unable to protect himself from those spiteful words:

_"She really loved you! I know! I could taste her heart. And what did you do? Because she wouldn't stay with you until you tired of her, you sentenced her to Lucifer's domain. Because she hurt your pretty pride - you've had her tortured for ten thousand years!"_

The words still echoed within his fragile soul, and they were followed by more; a softer, more compassionate voice than Desire's callousness, but nevertheless one that hurt him more, since it was one that had guided him, that he had always trusted:

_"Desire was right! You shut up and listen. Nada really loved you! Maybe Desire had a hand in how intensely you two felt about each other, but that doesn't matter, because Nada was right."_

He had tried to explain himself, to justify actions which he had thought were his right to perform: _"I would have made her a goddess…"_

_"Maybe she didn't want to be a goddess!"_ that voice had argued back; to his alarm, it had rung with truth. _"Did you ever consider that, little brother? And condemning her to Hell 'cause she turned you down?! That's a really shitty thing to do!"_

Dream's eyes narrowed in determination as those words resounded within him. "Do not repeat my mistakes, friend Jareth. My course was made clear to me by one whose advice I trust unwaveringly. My flaws were made evident to me; I committed a wrong, and though it may hold the direst repercussions for me, I must set it right. I was about to leave on a journey to Hell when your message reached me. I thought the least I can do was to meet with you one last time before I leave on a quest which may utterly destroy me. Upon my return, if you still want it, I shall gladly aid you in what you wish to do. However, do not mistake the wish for freedom as defiance, as I once did. I acted callously, unjustly – do not let pride and… Desire… manipulate you into doing the same thing, Jareth."

The Goblin King was silent for a minute, staring into space, these companionable words of caution whirling in his consciousness. Had he been wrong? Had he acted callously, cruelly? Had what he asked for from her been too much to demand?

_"Look, Sarah… look what I'm offering you; your dreams… I ask for so little… just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want… fear me, love me, and I will be your slave…"_

What if she hadn't wanted that, to be bound to another in such a way, on any terms? What if, no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he offered her, no matter how he tempted her, she would never submit to him? He remembered her, diaphronous in a floating gown the same pale shade of green as a new spring leaf, a wreath of dainty rosebuds regally crowning her hair – so young, so tender, so stunning… he remembered her pent-up sighs of wistfulness, her fitful cries for help, her misty-eyed longing… oh, how it quavered inside him, how it softened him, how he wanted to support, to protect that vulnerability… and at the same time, how that rebelliousness, that flash of light in her eyes, like lightning, like a tiger glimpsed through the bars of a cage; the incisive, clear little voice that intoned like a queen, so regal, so magnificent… so powerful…

_"You have no power over me…"_

Though he had a kingdom full of lowly subjects cowering at his feet, though his fearsome realm stretched, peerless, across the hills of the Underground; though he had his crystals full of magic and wonder that could bedazzle every sense, though he could have whatever he wanted, just by wishing it… the only thing he wished for, and the only thing he could not conjure for himself, was her…

"I must try," he declared vehemently, with some of his former bravado. "I must try one last time to win her, no matter the cost. I can't let it end with this. I lost; I am entitled to a rematch."

"And if you lose again? What then?"

Morpheus' question struck him like a whip, though his tone was still sedate and low. The full force of the possibility hit him. Jareth was silent. He couldn't contemplate it, couldn't allow it to happen… but he had thought that the last time as well. _What if it happened again…?_

"I shall contemplate that when it happens," he said with some pride, but his voice was shakily subdued. Yet he kept his head held high, chin tilted up obstinately, a fierce determination making his eyes flare blue fire.

The Dream King nodded. It could not be told if it were an approving nod, or the contrary. It seemed a mere acceptance of the way things must be.

"You will help me?" Jareth asked him, a hint of premature dejection in his voice. There was a pause, during which the goblin feared the Dream King might refuse.

"I shall help you, since you requested my aid," Morpheus answered at last. "I am not one to judge whether you are right or wrong; I have misjudged my own deeds, and therefore I am in no position to refuse you. As I mentioned, I have my own task I must undertake, my own wrongs I must right. As soon as I return to the Dreaming, when my own affairs are dealt with, I shall help you to create your dream."

Jareth looked relieved; the intimate talk of spurned love became a strictly-business transaction. "I shall pay you in advance." He held up his empty hand again; an orb appeared in it, and he tossed it across the table. Morpheus held out his hand with a masterful gesture, and it hovered there, suspended over his outstretched fingers. Mysterious mists of undefined colour and form whirled within it. "A dream paid for with a dream," Jareth declared. "I no longer have need of those dreams; they are my payment, do with them what you will."

"Your payment is accepted." Morpheus lowered his hand, and the orb blinked out of existence, probably to materialize somewhere within the Dreaming, stored away until its new owner found a use for it. "I apologize in advance if I am unable to fulfil your request," he said, rising to his feet and signalling the end of their meeting. "The journey I now undertake is perilous, and I have no indication that I may ever return from it."

"The best of luck in your endeavour; I anticipate your safe return," Jareth reciprocated, standing also.

Morpheus bid his guest farewell; Jareth again donned his cloak of feathers and flew home, trepidation and hope intermingled within his heart.

The Dream King materialized a long black travelling cloak about himself, gave his underlings, who appropriately fawned and feared for his safety, his final instructions, and left the Dreaming for what might have been the last time, similarly with both a foreboding and an urgent sense of purpose within him. He paused at the border of his domain, considering. He had a few errands to run before he made his way to Hell; _perhaps, since he was going to the human realm anyway…_

He outstretched his hand, and obediently, a glass orb came to perch there. Its contents swirled fitfully, impossible to make out.

"Do with it what I will," he repeated thoughtfully to himself. "Yes, I don't believe I'm mistaken in thinking that that is the proper course of action. Her name, then, was Sarah Williams..."

His mind made up, man and crystal winked out of this realm and into another. The Dreaming, though masterless, was, for the moment at least, peaceful.

* * *

_Author's Note: Lines in this chapter are quoted from the_ manga Death: At Death's Door _by Jill Thompson, which in turn based on the _Seasons of the Mist _story arc from_ Sandman.

* Lyrics from _Win_, by David Bowie


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**Chapter Two**

_"The course of true love never did run smooth."_

— Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene I

* * *

You look tired," Beth commented, watching her friend smother a yawn for what was the fifth time that morning. "You up late learning lines or something?"

"No," Sarah replied, rubbing her eyes wearily. "It's not that, I knew the lines pretty well already. I just didn't sleep very well. I was excited about the audition, I guess."

What she didn't tell her friend was that it was dreams which kept her fitfully awake, dreams which had haunted her for… _what, it must be almost three months now…_ And each dream was very similar to the last – _she was running down a long, dank corridor that stretched, seemingly infinitely, into the distance, its walls overgrown with fungi and the floor littered with debris that made her stumble. And as she ran, she slowly began to notice that the walls were not as blank and featureless as she had thought; the stones bulged outwards strangely, forming things… some sort of image… it looked like a… a face… she saw it over and over again, from the corner of her eye, but when she stopped running to look at it properly, it was mysteriously gone, nothing but a blank wall…_

"Are you sure you're alright?" Beth asked her, bringing her back to reality. "You're not too spaced out? You won't freeze or forget lines or faint in the middle of it?"

"Some supportive friend you are," Sarah grinned, elbowing Beth playfully in the ribs. "I'll be alright, I guess; I've done plenty of preparation, and I really like the role. I hope I get it!"

"You will!" Beth rubbed her side in a mock display of injury, but smiled reassuringly. "You're so good, there's no way you won't get it!"

"Yeah?" Sarah looked doubtful at this strong praise. "I hope so."

This was the first time she'd acted properly in front of an audience – amateur plays in middle school didn't really count. They weren't proper plays. Not the kind you had to audition for, not like this serious high school production. Sarah loved to act and had played pretend since she was little, but she was usually so rapt in her performance, she had no idea what other people were seeing or how well she was portraying her part. She tried to practice, paying attention to everything she did to make sure it was fit to be seen by others, but acting in front of a mirror just made her feel silly and insincere. When she acted, she tended to forget everything else – where she was, who was there, even who she was, what real life was. She gave herself completely to the fantasy, trying to put all her feeling and empathy into the character; she hoped it would be enough for today's casting call.

She pushed back her picked-at tray of cafeteria food. "I'm gonna go prepare a bit more, read over the lines one more time."

"Ok! Good luck, kiddo!" Beth called after her as she left the room.

As she walked down the corridor, nervously running her mind over the lines she had learned, Sarah thought she caught a flash of white beyond a window; she turned her head sharply, but nothing was there except a tree that grew next to the school building. She rubbed her tired head.

_ Focus! _She told herself. _You're not just tired, you're getting jumpy! It was probably just sunlight reflecting off a leaf. What were you expecting to see? These dreams are getting to you! It's not like it's going to happen again, not here… nothing can happen in the middle of school! Now, let's do this audition!_

She continued distractedly down the hallway. Outside in the tree, a branch just above the level of the window pane swayed, though there was no breeze, and there was a tell-tale sound of flapping wings which swiftly departed, a fluttering shadow fading into the sun's bleached-white rays.

* * *

_"And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,_

_So I, admiring of his qualities._

_Things base and vile, holding no quantity,_

_Love can transpose to form and dignity."_

The maiden stood in the grove of young sapling trees, delivering her impassioned soliloquy. Her voice was soft, tender, yet also forceful, as though fuelled by fierce emotion.

_"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;_

_And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind._

_Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;_

_Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:_

_And therefore is love said to be a child,_

_Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd."_

Her tone was introspective, almost confidential, as though she were speaking her heart to the soft, insistent breezes alone, yet the small group of observers heard her well, and all were enraptured by her words, forgetting for a moment that they were not her own. The fact that she wore casual jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers didn't dissipate the illusion at all – everyone was lost entirely in her voice. It took only a small, seemingly-distressed motion of her slim hand, a slight intake of breath, or the graceful droop of her head to create the character of the spurned lover, Helena, mourning her unrequited love for Demetrius.

_"…But herein mean I to enrich my pain,_

_To have his sight thither and back again."_

As she finished she let out a slight sigh, as though she had just reawakened from a dream, and gave a self-conscious, slightly awkward bow to the watching knot of onlookers. Then she blinked in surprise at the enthusiastic applause she received, even from some of the girls trying for the same part she had just auditioned for. She looked slightly embarrassed, as though she felt she didn't feel she'd earned the praise at all. Which she undoubtedly had.

Beth had been right. The audition had been a piece of cake, even if Sarah herself didn't realize it.

* * *

The sun was setting behind the trees as the auditions ended. The drama teacher had decided to hold them out in a grove behind a small staff car park. If the weather allowed, they would set up a stage in the car park itself and set the play among the trees, recreating the faeries' magical glade from nature itself. Now, as the shadows grew longer and the light faded, the teacher made some final notes on her clipboard, pondering over her decision as the few auditionees who had been called back waited nervously. Sarah noted that two other girls who had auditioned for the part of Helena had been asked to stay; a girl with a braid and one with short red hair. She began to feel uncertain. Nerves fluttered in her stomach.

After what seemed an age, the teacher began to announce the parts. A vivacious girl with long blonde hair was given the part of Hermia. A gangly boy who couldn't stand still and seemed to be something of a class clown was given the role of Puck. A quiet, introspective boy with bangs was cast as Lysander. An older boy with a booming voice was assigned to the character Oberon. Sarah waited and waited for the part of Helena to be announced. The girl with the braid was cast as Peaseblossom. Sarah anxiously waited. At last, the teacher came to the part of Helena – and gave it to the red-haired girl. Sarah's shoulders sank. She had put a lot of effort into that role, it was disappointing to not have made it after trying so hard and getting so involved in the character. The girl herself looked very surprised, and the other cast members murmured among themselves. They had all been sure that Sarah would've gotten the role.

"Sarah Williams?"

Sarah started. "Yes?" she answered uncertainly. She had thought she wasn't going to get a part.

"You'll be playing Titania."

The others nodded approvingly. Titania was one of the most prominent parts in the play – the role of the famous faerie queen. Sarah was stunned.

"B-but… I didn't audition for that part, I tried for Helena…"

"I know, but you'd make a perfect faerie queen. Your audition was splendid, your performance was so powerful, so commanding. I know you'll do the role justice." The teacher beamed.

The other students nodded in agreement, and again they began to applaud. Sarah blushed, trying not to let her misgivings show.

_ A faerie queen… it's not exactly a role I wanted to play…_

Somewhere amongst the trees, unheard by anyone, came the sound of beating wings. If anyone had heard it, they may have thought it were just another set of hands applauding.

* * *

When a still-dazed and tired Sarah came in for dinner, two surprises were waiting beside her place at the table. One was a lilac-hued envelope, addressed to S. Williams in an elegant, sloping hand. Sarah took one look at the postmark and grinned; a letter from her mother. Anyone else's mother would telephone, or perhaps even send an email in this day and age; but not Sarah's. There was something fun about writing things to each other; almost as though the other person, though far away, was a personal diary they could confide in and scribble personal little notes to. Sarah kept all the letters she received from her mother tucked safely away in a drawer, and pulled them out to read whenever she needed cheering up.

The other item beside her cutlery was a mysterious black velvet box. Wondering at the knowing glances between her father and stepmother, Sarah opened it.

"Oh…!"

Inside was a delicate hair beret in the shape of a butterfly, tiny crystals dangling from the tips of its wings. Sarah gently ran a finger over the intricate silver design.

"Do you like it?"

Sarah looked in surprise at Irene, who was looking very proud of herself. "It's beautiful!" she breathed, amazed despite herself. She never would've credited her stepmother with getting her something she liked this much…

"I was taking your father's watch to the jeweller to be repaired and I saw it in the glass case on the counter. It reminded me of you as soon as I saw it, and I was so sure you'd get your part in the play today that I thought I'd get it for you as an early congratulations-present."

"Thank you, I love it!" She didn't have to try to act pleased, or mutter a grudging thanks like she had over some of the presents Irene had brought her back when she had still been just dating her father. She got up from her seat and gave her a genuine hug. Irene hugged her back warmly. Over Sarah's shoulder, she and her husband shared a triumphant smile. The relationship between stepmother and stepdaughter had come a long way in the past few months.

"We were sure you were going to get the part, but you sure seemed surprised," her father commented, smiling as Toby, in his high chair, seemed to gurgle happily in agreement. "Surely with all the work you put into learning it and practicing, you were a shoo-in."

"Mmm, perhaps," Sarah demurred, chewing her food thoughtfully. "I didn't get the role I tried for anyway, so I definitely wasn't expecting it."

"Oh? What part did you end up getting? A good role?"

"Erm, I guess so. I'm playing Titania."

"Oh how lovely!" Irene exclaimed. "Isn't that the faerie princess?"

"Yeah, the faerie queen."

"Well that's a role you can do perfectly! You've always liked dressing up like a queen in gowns and tiaras. You didn't try out for that role in the first place?"

"N-no, I thought I'd tried for Helena… her lines seemed more dramatic…"

"Oh, but this role will be perfect for you! You'll be great!" Irene deftly manoeuvred a loaded spoon into Toby's pert little mouth. He babbled appreciatively.

"We're really proud that you got the role, Sarah," her father added. "You'll be treading the boards on Broadway like your mother one day." Both he and Sarah smiled. They both knew how important that dream was to her.

"You'll need quite an outfit for an important role like this!" Irene declared. "We may have to get you something new; I saw some nice silvery-green organza cloth in the haberdasher's department when I walked past today, it'd make a beautiful faerie-queen dress. Perhaps you could wear the beret in your hair as part of your costume?" she suggested hopefully.

Sarah grinned. "Yes, I will for sure! It's perfect!"

Toby became fussy, and Irene focused her attention on him. Sarah ate her food quietly, thinking things over as she did. It had been an eventful day.

_Strange how I got that role, _she pondered, _and it's strange how Irene got me that hairclip… I never expected her to get me something, especially not something I actually like, and I like this a lot… she knows me better than I thought she did… and she said I'd be good at the role… would I? Why would she think that?_

Despite herself, she thought for a moment of someone else who had thought she would make an ideal queen…

She banished the thought, staring at her plate resolutely. Why did she keep thinking of that… of _him_…? That was several months ago now; scary and exciting and amazing though it had been, she should be past it by now. Life went on, she'd picked up Shakespeare when this play had been announced by her school's drama club and she hadn't read that book since…

She remembered all those Saturdays in the park down by the bridge over the stream, wandering amongst the stately trees in her play-clothes, imagining she was a queen of a mythical land, defending her kingdom… Ironic, wasn't it, that now she had been given the part of a queen – again – she didn't want to play it…

"Sarah, you should go to bed early tonight; you look tired," her father said, looking at her over his half-finished plate.

Sarah came back to herself, realizing her lack of sleep must really be showing in her face if people kept on mentioning it to her. She felt mentally exhausted. Tonight, she didn't argue with him like she sometimes did.

"Yeah, I will."

* * *

He looked around the large, airy room. At the moment its only dominating features were a large wooden floor and semi-circular windows across the back wall, which was covered in dingy peeling paint and chipped plaster. The only furnishings were some rickety tables and mismatched wooden chairs around the outer edges of the room. The entire place was plain and bare, without all the grand, heavy stone-carved ornamentation he was used to. Perfect. Just what he needed for a fresh start like this. A clean slate.

There was only one decoration he needed. Over on one wall hung a large, gold-rimmed picture frame which was as-yet empty. He raised a hand before it; inside the crystal orb he held there, a vision of a girl, her hair draping round her face in soft folds and clad in a loose black garment, was clearly visible within its heart. As he held it up before him, the image looked, from his point of view, like it was within the frame, merely viewed through the crystal's transparent mass. He lowered his hand; the image stayed in the frame, and the crystal came away empty. He casually palmed it out of existence and stepped forward to examine his handiwork.

It wasn't one of those smooth, shiny 'photographs', but a painting, and a very fine piece of work at that. Nary a brushstroke was visible in the pale cheek, nor in the startlingly clear, large hazel eyes… _Such a likeness…_

"Hey, that looks just like-" a voice behind him began.

He whirled on his heel, remembering himself. "Have you polished those tables yet? I want this place spick and span before midnight. If I see as much as a speck of dust on that wood, I'll throw you straight in the deepest dustbin I can find."

His underling gasped and scurried away frenziedly, armed with a cleaning cloth. These 'dustbins' were a strange feature of the landscape here. Though made from plastic like the jewels which came from this world, they weren't shiny or pretty at all, on the contrary they looked dark and foreboding; one imagined that once you were thrown in, you would be forgotten and might never make your way out again, smothered by the stench of reeking trash. And with _him_ in a mood like this, it wasn't wise to test the conviction of his words.

His boss had forgotten the underling the moment he had been sufficiently terrorised into obeying; distracted, he strode across the room and went out through the heavy wooden double-doors, out into the chill night air, the distant stars looking frostily down from the sky above. He surveyed the outside of his new abode with satisfaction. It was just as he had imagined it into being. _All it needed now was a name…_

* * *

Sarah tugged absently at the neck of her black nightshirt, which had slipped off her shoulder, and put her hairbrush, which she had just been using, aside, reaching out to finger the pages of the letter she had just read. Mum's letters always made her smile. They were full of chatty news – how the latest show her mother was producing was going, how the actors – the ones Sarah knew from on-set visits – were, what the town she was in at the moment was like. Sarah began to re-read lines at random, a vague smile on her face.

_…Reggie tried to refuse to wear his wig again. You'd think after twelve cities had already seen him in those ridiculous bangs, he'd be over it. I told him that at least five understudies would gladly wear it for him. That shut him up… My apartment here is opposite a little park. It doesn't have a little stone bridge like ours-" here Sarah's smile grew a little broader "-but it makes me feel a bit homesick every time I look at it. I'll be passing through town in two months' time, the long wait is getting shorter – I wonder if I'll have any hair left by then, with all the pulling of it I've been doing!... Jeremy has made this place his castle, since he's been laid up. You remember he fell off a ladder adjusting part of the scenery in that rickety old theatre in Chicago? The cast doesn't come off for a few weeks – hopefully in time for when we come home! – so he's made the place his own little nest. He's more homely than me, he just sends me off with an earful of instructions every morning and goes back to his crosswords for the rest of the day. Then I promptly forget everything he told me as soon as I walk through the stage door, and end up doing things my own way… Judy said to say hello, her little one, Jasper, is doing well. He keeps everyone from doing their work when he's around, everyone stands in the wings going ga-ga over him, I have to get her partner, Rob, to take him out to the park or something so we can get things done. He'd be the same age as Toby I reckon, we should organize a play date for them when we come through…_

There was one line that bothered Sarah in this letter, which was unusual. She tried to avoid it, but her eyes glanced over it despite herself.

_…had a few offers of projects after this one, but nothing I'm that keen on. The writers on this one were a bit restrictive on what I could design set-wise, so with the money I earned on this over-stuffed period-drama set-up, I was thinking of putting on something of my own initiative that I can have complete control over. I don't know what I'll do for a story, but I'd like something less reality-driven. Perhaps I'll finally do a production of that story I used to read you – you know, the little red one - like I always planned to. I don't know how I'd do it or who would do it, since Jeremy can't be my Goblin King with his leg still on the mend, but it's something I'm considering. The story's old, it should be in the public domain by now, if I can get a hold of the publishers…_

Sarah stopped. Someone to play the Goblin King. It seemed so ridiculous, to even consider someone playing it; even Jeremy, talented actor though he was. Surely no one could quite play the part right. After she had seen the real-

_No. Don't think of him. Just don't._

_Why not?_ asked a more obstinate part of her mind. _Thinking of him surely won't do-_

_You didn't think making a half-hearted wish would do anything either, did you? Just don't. It's too dangerous._

She sighed. It would be hard, though, when everything seemed to remind her of _that_ _time_ – of _him_!

She carefully tucked the letter in her dressing table drawer atop a thick pile of others. Her hand paused on the top of the pile. She knew what was tucked underneath them; under the bottom-most letter, the edge of a bright-red book cover was just visible… it had been a while since she'd read it…

She got up abruptly, closed the drawer and wandered over to the bed, turning off the lamp as she did so. She had promised her father she would go to bed early. And she felt like she needed it. It had been a busy day. She had had far too much to think about without worrying about that still… Hopefully, she would wake up the next day, refreshed, with new thoughts in her head… Ones that had nothing to do with _that_…

She should've thought her wish more carefully before she drifted off to sleep; in that domain where wishes are that their most potent, that briefest of moments between waking and sleeping. She soon got new thoughts, alright. But they weren't the sort she wanted. And they'd give her far, far more to think about.

She realized things weren't right almost right away. Almost as soon as she slipped from reality into the world of dreams, she was back in the corridor of the labyrinth. But this time she wasn't alone. A man was standing on the path before her. Standing calmly in the middle of the corridor, as though he had been waiting for her.

* * *

She felt a wild, irrational fear for a moment; for a moment she thought it was _him_…

But no, it wasn't. This man, though he had a similar silhouette, was strikingly different from the other, imposing figure she had thought him to be for just a second. This man's pitch-black hair was made darker still by his deathly-white skin. His eyes were very dark as well, and they glimmered eerily. He was dressed in black too; black jeans, black t-shirt, black leather jacket, black boots. They were clothes from her own world, which surprised her.

"Hello?" she began hesitatingly. "Are… are you supposed to be here?"

"In a way, yes," he answered. His voice sent a chill through her; it was as deep as a velvety-black, moonless sky, yet had a slight melodic tone to it, like a melancholic wind whistling among the eaves on a restless night. "All Dreams are my domain. This one is yours; it was open, and I wished to speak with you, so I hope you do not mind that I entered it."

"Ummm, no, that's ok," Sarah answered, feeling puzzled. _After all , it wasn't her labyrinth…_

"You don't seem very happy to be here," the man broke in on her thoughts. "Even though you dream this place into existence, you're reluctant to be here."

"Yeah, you're right," Sarah replied, wondering how he knew it so well. "I've been having these weird recurring dreams… they're always a bit like this. Always in this place. But this is the first time this has happened; I've never seen you here."

"This is merely the first time I have made my presence felt."

This statement seemed to confirm for Sarah the strange inkling feeling she had been getting that she had seen this man before. But _when_? He was like a dream that she had had, but didn't quite recall afterwards. Yet somehow, this man felt familiar… not so much his appearance, but his 'presence', as he had put it… she had felt it many times before, though that seemed silly… how did you dream a _presence_? Furthermore, she realized, how did you _talk _to it, like she was doing now?

"If you don't like this dream," he continued, "I can give you a new one. Would you like that?"

"I… I suppose so…" she said noncommittally. She remembered too well what had happened the last time she was offered something of this nature. "What sort of dream?"

"A dream of the past. A dream which has, I believe, been waiting for you to have it for some time now. Will you take it now? Time is short, I have other places I need to be, and a long journey I must soon embark upon. Will you have it?"

She hesitated a moment longer. _A dream of the past… that didn't sound so bad…_ she could dream about when her mother had lived with her, when they had gone to the park with a box of play-clothes, acting out stories and making up silly impromptu scenes together, lying in the grass as the babbling stream echoed their laughter and Merlin, still a little puppy, romped around them, licking their faces… those carefree days, they seemed a long way away now… she wouldn't mind having them back, for a night at least…

"Alright, I'll take a different dream. T-thank you."

He nodded, and reached into his pocket. In surprise, she realized as she took a step forward to receive it that it was a handful of sand he held; he blew on it softly and it swirled around her like tendrils of mist. She was soon hidden from view by it. The sand faded into nothingness, and Sarah with it. The Dream King stood alone in the labyrinth of Sarah's old dream, looking at the battered walls and debris-strewn floor. He extended a hand; a crystal appeared in it. It was empty now, devoid of the least particle of dream-stuff.

"This dream has been exchanged for another. I think he wanted her to have it, but was too afraid to ever let her into it. She has possession of it now; a gift from me. I shall retire this old one of hers in return."

He looked towards the castle, which was just visible over the high wall beside him, its tower pointing regally skyward. "Sleep well, Lady Sarah, and dream well. I hope The Dreaming serves you well in my absence, and I hope the outcome of this is close to what he intended. If I can't fulfil his request after I return from Hell, at least I have done this much."

And with that, he left Sarah's old, overused dream for the waking world. He had much business to attend to before he left on a journey which could very well prove to be his last.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_No one can blame you for walking away  
__Too much rejection, no love injection  
__Life can be easy, it's not always swell  
__Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl  
__'Cause it hurts like hell_

* * *

The room was dimly lit. A harsh glare shot through the glassless window, but it couldn't penetrate the depths of the gloom. Interposed before it were row upon row of books – books of every shape and size, yet all the same colour, rendered a toneless grey by a thick jacket of dust. Cobwebs acted as curtains, further contributing to the desolation of the place. The only sound among the silent forest of labyrinthine shelves was the soft rustle of leaves – pages turning softly, apologetically, as though afraid of their own noise. A small hand tenderly coaxed them into motion, smoothing them reassuringly. Then all was silent, though not altogether still; there was a slight intake of breath as the reader read, oblivious to the aesthetic of his surroundings, head bent over the pages, spellbound.

A door at the top of a steep flight of stone stairs banged open abruptly, letting meager light from above filter in, obtrusive. The spell was broken. There was a furtive movement, and a telltale thwump! as a heavy tome was slammed closed. A large, oily-looking feather duster was snatched up, but not fast enough to avoid the malicious glint in the single eye that bore down upon him.

"Eh! Goofing off again, are you?! Little whelp, sponging off our hospitality! Little spew stain! Bag of filth!" A huge goblin loped clumsily down the stairs, three at a time. His great knotted arms reach almost past his knees and his bottom teeth, of which there were only three left, protruded over a blackish lip that was curled up in a snarl, giving him the appearance of a muscled, grey-skinned, hairless ape. From between the double ear-flaps of a leather cap, only one good eye, beady-yellow and cruelly cold, fastened on the cringing boy as he continued to curse. "Lazy louse! Ungrateful wretch, that's what you are! You're s'pposed to tidy this place, not play with the things in it! It's all you do to pull yer measley weight around this place, and you can't even manage that!"

"I-I wasn't playing, Gringol sir," the timid little voice, tremulous either from disuse or fearfulness, replied in entreaty. "I was just r-r-reading a bit…"

"'Ere you go again with this 'reeding' business!" Gringol's harsh, guttural growl cut him off. "Whatever foolish game you've thought up to play with these things, it's nothing more than a foolish game! These things are junk, a waste of space! If I had my way, they'd be thrown on camp fires so our troops could cook the food they need to survive, unlike you, you little rat-bait, sitting in here hording them while you eat our food!" so saying, he took up the book the lad had been reading – though it was almost as thick as the boy's forearm was long, he held it easily by its spine with one meaty fist – and held it over the guttering flames of the candles.

He smirked gleefully as he saw the fear well up in the poor desperate eyes of his charge, perched breathless on his stool, willing the pages not to start smoldering. Then the goblin pulled the book away – as tauntingly slowly as he could manage – with a sulky look.

"But our last Goblin King said these had to stay here, and you were to have this room. So long as no one yet usurps his rule, it still stands. But enjoy these things while you can. I hope our next king says we can get rid of every last dratted one! The minute he gets the throne, I'm gonna ask him, whoever he may be, to let me put a torch to this place!" He laughed callously, then tossed the book aside, raising a plume of dust where it hit the grimy floor. "Eat yer mangy crust, then start cleaning!" He snatched up the feather duster, brandishing it threateningly. The boy watched it nervously. "If yer get rid of every speck of dust in this bilge-pile by coronation day, I just might let you keep a few when the time comes! If I'm feeling generous, I'll throw some down the dungeon pit after you! Har-har-har!"

Delighted by the prospect of his own morbid entertainment, Gringol brought the feather duster down smartly across the youth's shoulders. Though for him it was a playful swipe, with his hand it held all the efficiency of a plied-leather whip; it knocked the poor lad off his stool onto the hard flag floor with a groan. Then Gringol threw down the tin box he had been carrying, narrowly missing the boy's head and denting the tin, then lumbered back up the stairs and, with a last menacing leer, slammed the door with a sound like a thunderclap that echoed throughout the dank chamber.

The boy got gingerly to his feet, wincing as he did, and inspected the tin. Inside was a crust of bread that was amazingly uninjured by its unceremonious delivery. The boy tried to bite into it and spluttered. He threw it down dismally. It made a hollow thud on the floor. It was nearly rock-solid. The water in a metal cup, most of which had been sloshed everywhere, was likewise putrid and full of bugs' legs, he knew more from experience than by actually peering at it through the gloom. If it wasn't already like that when it left the kitchen, Gringol made sure of it on his way from there. Gringol hated him, he knew; after all, it was hardly disguised. He knew was nothing to Gringol; less than a bug. And Gringol liked to step on bugs, or smash them with a big spiked club. Whichever was handier or drew the more satisfying crunch. The only reason Gringol didn't do the same to him was that his father had forbidden it… his father who, though he had never truly cared for the boy, had always protected him… _him and his mother…_

His mother hadn't been a full-blooded Goblin. She had had exotic blood in her, restless blood which had led her to wander across this land and many others, plying various trades, getting by however she could so that she could live wherever took her fancy. Until her luck had run out, and she had had trouble finding food to live on, garments to keep her warm. And so she had taken in with his father, who had come across her on his way back home from a war campaign. Soon after, he himself had been born in this castle. He remembered how, long ago now, he had lived upstairs in a larger, brighter room where the air had tasted fresher, where there had been fewer cobwebs, where the food had been much better. And every so often she would go out, eventually coming back with new books. Every few days, when she tired of the newest ones, when they failed to ease the passing of her long, eventless days spent confined in just one room, she would steal out to look for new ones. She would be gone sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, and he would be left alone, brought food occasionally by a sulky servant, looking out the window in hope he would catch a glimpse of her returning in the courtyard below. And at last, she would return, face flushed, eyes bright, holding up her prize, letting him turn the pages for her, reading aloud so he could hear how the words were supposed to sound, explaining what it was about, what it described, how beautiful the things she spoke of were. He had been happy then.

Until one day, she didn't come back.

He had waited and waited. He had sat at the window of nights with a candle, hoping he might see her in the flickering, thin sliver of light it cast on the stone below. He had taken good care of her books, checked them surreptitiously to make sure not so much as a page was bent, read them aloud carefully and correctly in case she might come in the door at any moment and hear how well he did it. But she never did. At last the servants complained of having to bring his meager meals to him every day, until the father whom he never saw, the Goblin King, distracted by other matters, delegated a room to him and the books and assigned a henchman to bring him what he needed to stay alive. But Gringol was barely even doing that now. Once the king had died, Gringol's treatment had gotten worse and worse. He was constantly grumpy, because no one knew who would be the new Goblin King.

The previous king had had scores of sons, many princes, and all of them wanted to rule his kingdom after his demise. All were big and strong and capable with a fist or flail, any weapon they might lay their hands on. The eldest prince had made the mistake of arguing with loud words alone, proclaiming his right as having been first born; which had only made him the first killed. He certainly hadn't been the last. Now countless bands of goblins, all vicious and each supporting a different prince, roamed the land, battling each other when they met and as likely as not managing to wipe each other out. He had read about such things happening before. They were called 'civil wars', though there seemed to be nothing 'civil' about them. Few he had read about had lasted as long, or were as horrible, as these were. Villages – and their inhabitants - were crushed flat by fights between opposing factions. Battles were fought on top of whole towns, destroying them even as the combatants destroyed each other. No regard was given to those who were too weak to take part in the battles. All that mattered was who would turn out to be the strongest at the end of them.

These were the snatches of gossip he heard through the open window, uttered in the courtyard below by returning soldiers and uneasy servants. Gringol never told him anything but insults. Whoever became king would become his direct master, and it irritated his impatient nature to have to wait so long to find out who would command him. He secretly rather hoped no princes would survive, so that he might make a grab for the throne himself. That was why Gringol hated his charge so much. He was a Goblin Prince, the son of the former king, no matter how puny or unlikely he looked. Which was just why he had no hope of surviving. He was too puny and unlikely to be a contender, so surely he must be killed by whoever finally rose as the new Goblin King. It didn't matter that he was no threat, and that he didn't want the throne for himself anyway. This was just what goblins did. They bickered and fought, and were generally nasty creatures. And he wasn't much of a goblin at all. He wasn't much of anything.

He went to the book and picked it up tenderly, dusting off its already filthy cover as best he could. He turned the pages until he came to what he wanted. Inside was another book, so thin it was barely a book at all, so skinny it barely had a spine. It must have been shoved into this bigger book long ago by mistake, but it had delighted him more than its larger container. He opened the thin book-within-a-book to a page with a large picture of an un-goblin boy holding a tall black hat and wearing a coat with a long, pointy hem at the back. He read aloud the words under the image:

_"Brandon Himmel, boy magician, thrills audiences at the  
__Palais Casino, Las Vegas. Catch his brilliant shows of  
__mind-blowing modern wizardry while you can. Tickets  
__are pre-book only, limited shows, hurry as seats will  
__sell quickly. Brandon appears courtesy of Razza-Ma-  
__Tazza Magic Stores, seventy-five outlets in fifty states,  
__providing wizards with their means of magic since 1964."_

Having finished reading, he turned his head to the side and waved the feather duster over an imaginary top hat like a wand, wishing he could swap lives with the boy in the book. This book was different from all the others – instead of the usual yellowing, musty pages, its leaves were almost pristine, smooth and shiny as new leaves. Unlike the usual pages and pages of dense words that crawled across the paper like squished bugs before his eyes in the dim light, this one had huge pictures which flared with amazing colours, brighter than the flames on the candle wicks. Compared to the drabness of the room he dwelt in, they seemed far more real, as though they were actually the reality and the dank old library was the thing of fiction, lost in the pages of a long-forgotten, age-eaten tome.

The pictures all showed un-Goblin people, beautiful people with long hair and strange clothes of sumptuous fabrics that shone and were full of pattern and colour, and who painted their faces artistically to enhance their beauty. And they wrote of things they enjoyed, things he had never experienced, like 'the cinema', and 'roller-skates', and 'chocolate-fudge sundaes', and 'music'. It was this so-called 'music' that fascinated him more than anything. The beings that made this music, these 'singers', appeared in the book's pages far more frequently than any other type of un-Goblin. They wore flamboyant clothes and had wider smiles that looked almost like feral snarls, showing sharp-looking teeth, and some had pouty lips that had been painted startling crimson, and all had intense, smoky eyes which seemed to know things other people didn't, or couldn't, know. When they made this 'music' they opened their lips very wide and closed their eyes, or else gazed outwards fixedly, blankly, as though they saw things the others couldn't. As though, unseen by everyone else, they looked into a private world of dreams - dreams that were sad, wonderful, delightful, or terrible.

Looking at an image of one of these 'singers', he tried to slick back his long, unkempt thatch of hair like the un-Goblin in the picture, and raised the feather duster before him like the 'microphones' all these singers had. He stretched his mouth as wide as it would go and squinted his eyes closed. But he didn't know what should be coming out of his mouth. He had no idea what this 'music' should sound like. It made him feel strangely empty, to wonder what 'music' sounded like, but to never understand it himself. Words seemed to be useless to describe it. And words were all he had. Every singer in the book appeared with his or her mouth open, making music – but in every silent image, the music went unheard in the still, stale air of the library.

The stillness of the stale air was suddenly shattered – there was a great crash somewhere down the far end of the room. Closing the thin book and tucking it into his roughly-sewn, murky-coloured vest, he dropped the duster and scampered over to investigate. Waving aside the cloud of dust that had risen, coughing and spluttering as it choked him with thundercloud-grey fingers which tasted with the bitterness of lost time, he saw that an entire set of shelves, the one closest to the window, had been crushed, crumpled pages of ruined books fluttering listlessly on the floor. It made him sad to look at them; the books had been almost like friends to him, the only ones he had, and he cherished each of them. Sitting in the middle of the mess of paper was a great metal ball covered in dangerous-looking spikes. A great hole went right through it, through which it looked like some shaft or handle should go. From without the window he could hear a barrage of curses issuing up into the air; the owner of this great spiked weapon obviously rued its loss.

The lad hesitated, not sure of what to do. It wasn't any of his business. Should he just leave it alone? Outside, voices argued over whether the lost weapon could be recovered. The boy fretted. What if they came in here looking for it? They might come storming in and make even more of a mess of even more books. Or worse, they might decide to burn the whole place out, turn all the books into firewood like Gringol had said. There was nothing for it; he had to take the great spiked ball to them before they came in looking for it. He went over, trying as best he could not to step on any pages – they might still be readable, he could put them back on the shelves loose perhaps – and tentatively tried to lift the ball, hooking his fingers into where there was a hole on either side of it to avoid the cruel spikes. He hefted, and just managed to get it off the ground, arms quivering with the effort. He half-dragged, half-rolled it carefully to the bottom of the flight of stairs. He then very carefully lifted it up one stair at a time, dreading it would roll back down and take out another rack of books or, worse, both his kneecaps. Finally he reached the top and slowly, cautiously tried the knob of the door. It gave grudgingly. All these years, he had never ventured to try the door, but he had long suspected that Gringol didn't bother to lock it.

He wasn't sure how to get out to the courtyard, having never roamed the castle outside of his own rooms before, but after a few minutes of aimless wandering, he followed behind an elderly footman, who paid him no attention. A measley goblin carrying another, larger goblin's weapon for him was hardly a strange sight in the goblin castle, especially during these days of conflict. At last, following his oblivious guide, he passed through the castle's great, gaping portal and stood on the flagstones outside, blinking dazedly in the bright light. The group of goblins was still arguing over who would go and look for the spiked ball. Now that he could actually see them, this didn't seem like such a good idea any more. They were all at least three times his size! The largest one was waving a stick, from which, he assumed, he had lost the offensive knob he now carried. He took a deep breath. He had come this far; might as well finish what he'd started. He approached the group warily.

"E-excuse me!"

No one heard him; they were still bickering at the top of their voices. After several minutes, one of them finally happened to glance about and catch sight of him. The goblin did a double-take.

"Hey, this pip-squeak's got it! He's got the mace!"

Ten cruelly-glaring eyes fastened on him instantaneously; then, quicker than he could blink, a great hand fastened painfully tight on his ankle and wrenched him off his feet, making him cry out in terror. The group sniggered. He found himself dangling by one foot in front of the biggest goblin's grotesque face, his rank breath washing over him in putrid gasps.

"Why've you got my mace, runt? Hand it over!"

The goblin held up the handle; hands shaking, he managed to slide the mace head onto it. It slide straight down the wooden shaft and whacked the great goblin right across his wide knuckles. He bawled, dropping both the mace and his captive. The lad landed on his back on the hard ground, feeling like he had dropped from the castle's highest tower, unable to do little more than lie there and blink the stars from his eyes. Another rough hand seized him, this time by the front of his clothes, and held him aloft again.

"What's the idea, dog-weed? You tryin' to take on the Goblin Prince, Snirick the Undefeatable?"

At his words, the boy froze, quavering with fear. Everyone in the castle knew the name Snirick. He was the biggest, and reportedly most ruthless, of the Goblin Princes. He and his army camped closest to the castle grounds, so out of the princes he was the one who spent the most time at the castle itself, and was the one most goblins expected to win the war of the throne. What he lacked in age compared to his brothers, he made up for in pure bulk and brawn. He was twice as wide as the broadest goblin in his own entourage. Glaring angrily at the thin trickle of blood issuing from his skinned knuckles, he loomed over the boy in fury.

"Eh, you lookin' to end your puny life early, runt? You nearly took my fingers off with that stunt!"

"I-I d-d-didn't-t-t m-mean t-to d-d-do it-t-t," the lad managed to stutter between chattering teeth.

"Well, what's done is done, and I have to pay you back for it!" The Goblin Prince eyed his quarry, who froze in abject terror. He knew he was going to be given far more than he had accidentally dealt.

"Smoosh him!" another goblin encouraged.

"Drop the mace on 'im!"

"Roast 'im on a spit!"

"Cut him to shreds!"

"Drown him in the bog!"

"Heh, a little runt like that, he's not worth the effort!" Snirick declared with a malicious snicker. "I know the easiest way to get rid of 'im! Bring 'im this way!"

He felt himself carried joltingly across the courtyard. He almost didn't dare to look; when he finally turned to face the direction he was being carried in, he instantly wished he hadn't. A dark, yawning hole opened in the ground, and its threatening mouth was rapidly approaching. This was the 'dungeon pit' Gringol had so often threatened him with, and it looked as terrible as Gringol had promised it would be.

"Hahaha, chuck 'im in!" Snirick chortled. "The pit'll take care of 'im for us!"

He felt a horrible lurch as he was lifted by a powerful fist, them there was a sickening weightlessness as he was hurled downwards, mirth-filled laughter chasing him down. Almost instantly, Snirick and his cronies disappeared from view and the darkness seemed to press in on his eyeballs. He fell down, down, down, occasionally grazing his hand or his foot on rough, damp walls as he flailed helplessly against his descent. Suddenly, something else, something squidgy and wet, hit his hand; and it didn't just brush against him. It held on. His fall stopped short. He found himself dangling by one wrist, panting frantically. Peering through the gloom, he tried to make out what was holding him up. Then he shuddered. It was a hand. But it wasn't attached to any body; it protruded straight out of the wall. It was strong though, and alive; he felt it slightly adjust its manacle-like grip on his wrist. Another hand clamped onto his ankle without warning; it was followed by one on the back of his shirt, then one on his other wrist, one on his shoulder, another digging its fingers into his hair. He struggled against them in vain; they latched on relentlessly.

"W-w-who's there? What are y-you?"

"What are we?" a creaky voice spoke out of nowhere. Though the hands had no heads attached to them with which to talk, it didn't seem to matter. "We're hands, and that's all we are. Once we were whole people, but not any more."

"Now we're nobody," chimed in another, gravellier voice.

"Left here to rot!"

"Forgotten by all!"

"Sentenced to all eternity here!"

"W-what is this place?" the boy asked tremulously.

He was answered by scornful laughter. "Don't you know?"

"You're in the pit!"

"What's there to know? You're in a big, black hole, kid! Duh!"

"It's called an oubliette!"

"It's a hell-hole!"

"And don't bother asking how you get out – answer is, you don't!"

"W-w-what?" the boy faltered, growing increasingly more frightened.

"Eh, you stupid or what? You got thrown in here, you ever expect to get out?"

"Ha, what a sap!"

"You is our comp'ny now, compadré!"

"You're in for a long stay!"

"They won't let you go!" This new voice that piped up was different from the others; it wasn't malicious like the rest, it sounded defeated, and it was young, perhaps about his age. "They snatch everyone who comes down here and make them stay! Oh, the things they've made me see-"

"I miss my baby!" a voice interrupted, sounding high and female, full of tears. "They wouldn't let me go back to him! I begged and begged, but they made me stay! My baby, he's all I can think about-"

"I didn't mean to tip over the cask o' grog, but golly, was I punished for it! Thrown down here for such a little mistake, it wasn't fair at all! Oh, the things they've shown me, it's enough to drive me mad!"

"Why shouldn't you go mad like the rest of us?" one of the first voices interjected, full of hostility. The hands that held him jostled fretfully, making him dizzy. "We're all mad, mad at our enslavers, driven mad by being here so long!"

"You haven't even been touch by madness yet, compared to us! I've been here at least 16 years! My mind is like a great wad of darkness, plugging up my soul…"

"Fer decades we begged to be let out! We reached out, towards the sky, towards escape, beggin' fer mercy, beggin' for food, fer light, fer water, fer freedom. No one ever answered us none."

"We was forgot. Left to rot. All us lot."

"So we just became hands – nameless, faceless, disembodied hands reaching out, searching for salvation, never finding any!"

"Just finding dark; the dark, the confines, the wet, the airlessness, the madness…"

"…and memories!"

"Ah, the memories are the worst!"

"They keep us here! The memories are all we've got left! But they only hurt us more! Cos we can't never go back, no matter how much we think about it, no matter how much we wish it! Never!"

"And you're not goin' back either, pipsqueak! Only place you is goin' is straight on down!"

And suddenly, the grip of the hands was gone and he was plummeting in the direction the voice had said, screaming in fright. Momentarily, a new hand caught him; he felt himself passed from one set of hands to another, all cold and clammy and rough, jostling him along at an alarming speed, all the while muttering amongst themselves. At last, instead of a new set of hands, he felt only the rank air about him; he fell, but only a short distance, onto a hard floor that crunch sickeningly as he landed on it, things that sounded alarmingly like rattling bones skittering out from under him. There was a harsh laugh above him, and he could barely make out the hands flailing tauntingly above him, laughing cruelly at their new cellmate's predicament.

He shivered, crouching forlornly on the floor. His own hands searched madly for comfort; he felt the thin book inside his vest. The pages had all been crumpled to one side by the impact of his landing, and the cover had been torn where one of the goblins had grabbed him by his clothes. He pulled it out, but it was useless in this impenetrable dark; he was as blind to his previous visions as he had been deaf to the singers' music. In a last-ditch effort to reassure himself, he felt in a secret pocket inside his shirt. His hand hit something hard, smooth and round. It was a perfectly spherical crystal ball. It had been his mother's; she had used it to ply her gypsy trade, showing patrons visions within its depths in return for money or food. He clutched onto it now, remembering how she had called up images for him, just for fun. Images of places she had been, or wanted to go to...

_Fields with flowers that were taller than men, their nodding heads of delicate petals pointing regally upwards at a sapphire-blue sky. Colourful bazaars with overflowing stalls of produce which shifted like kaleidoscopes, a never-ending cascade of wonders. Rivers that rushed, never pausing, over cliff edges, sending up a curtain of water that was as thick as smoke, hanging in the air like upwards rain. Hills made of sands which shimmered ruby-red, appearing to wander in the distance through a water-like heat haze..._

He tried to call up an image now, concentrating as hard as he could. Gradually the crystal began to glow, barely a pin-light at first, but getting stronger. He could now see the lines on the palms of his hands and the glint of his fingernails in the soft light, but it was too weak to illuminate anything else. He remembered her smiling face, her soft touch, the sound of her tinkling laughter. Her face appeared in the crystal, beaming at him. No, it didn't look quite right. His memory of her was so hazy, it had been so long ago. He tried harder, trying to recall her exact features, by they remained a vague approximation. The vision flickered, like a candle flame before an open window; his grip tightened on the ball, as though by physically hanging on, he could make the image stay. But it didn't work, the image continued to fade. Suddenly it flared, but it had changed without warning; the gentle smile was replaced with a wane, ashen-hued face, its mouth distorted by a soundless howl, a pair of hands reaching out frantically, as though they could claw their way out of the crystal. He flinched; he almost dropped the ball, and the images faded altogether, leaving the darkness complete once again. He clutched it to his thin chest which heaved with the sheer mental exertion, wishing as hard as he could; but still it wouldn't work. Perhaps he heard the hands muttering softly above him; his surrounds seemed to press themselves upon his poor, downtrodden self. He put his head down on his drawn-up, knobbly little knees and sobbed passionately.

* * *

Sarah woke to the distant sound of sobbing. The door creaked open; she held her breath as she saw _a disembodied hand reaching through the gap…_

Irene followed it, peering at her across the dim room. "I'm sorry, did Toby wake you up? The little fellow decided to be fussy and woke us all. Are you ok? You look pale. Do you want me to get you an aspirin?"

"N-no," Sarah muttered blearily. "I'm fine. It just startled me is all. I was fast asleep when he started crying."

Irene grinned tiredly. "Weren't we all? Your father's trying to get him to quieten down. Hopefully he'll drop off again soon. Try and get back to sleep, honey. Pleasant dreams."

"Thanks."

If Sarah's voice when she answered sounded slightly strange, Irene must've put it down to her being only half-awake. In truth, Sarah was fully awake now; she didn't go back to sleep after her stepmother left, or even after Toby's fretfully howls ceased and the house was quiet again. She lay on her back, thinking; remembering. Remembering the dream. Usually, when she had dreams, they were hazy, and in the morning she would groggily try to recapture the now-fuzzy visions from the previous night. But she remembered this one perfectly, down to the finest details. The looming faces of the goblins and the flailing hands made her shiver at their memory, and it wasn't just from having encountered them in the Labyrinth herself. After all, the place in the dream could only be the Labyrinth; but she'd never known it to be like that. She had never met any goblins so big and threatening, and the hands had never been so spiteful; they had been almost helpful when she had encountered them. The place in the dream had been like the Labyrinth, but somehow… it had been all _wrong_.

And she hadn't actually been there as herself. She, as _Sarah_, hadn't actually stood in the courtyard or fallen into the oubliette in the dream, yet she had seen everything from the centre of the action, as though she had been the sole audience of a film which showed it all, shot by an unseen, inexistent camera. But it was more than like just watching a movie; she had just known things too, things like the old Goblin King being dead and the wars going on, though no one had actually spoken of them. She had just _known_, as though the thoughts had come to her out of nowhere. She supposed dreams were like that; sometimes you just knew things in dreams, like the dream she had had of a white beach and coconut drinks when she had known she was in Haiti, though no one in the dream had told her as much and she had never been there whilst awake. In dreams, things didn't need an explanation. They just _were_.

But right now, she wanted an explanation. Because as clear as that dream had been and as much as she still remembered, it left her incredibly confused. She remembered the little goblin boy, sniveling, cringing in fear, almost painfully thin, looking under-fed and dressed in threadbare clothes. And puny and unlikely as he had looked, she knew – she just **_knew_** – that that boy had been the future Goblin King; _he had been a very young Jareth._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

As the pain seeps through  
Makes no sense for you  
Every thrill has gone  
Wasn't too much fun at all

* * *

Sarah wandered distractedly down the corridor after school. She was on her way to her locker to get the costumes she had promised her drama teacher for the play, taken from the extensive collection her mother had given her. Normally she would've fussed over them, thinking which ones would suit which character, wondering which she should wear herself; but at the moment she wasn't even thinking of them. She was still thinking about the dream the mysterious man in the Labyrinth had given to her. She felt like she hadn't woken from the dream properly at all, and she had been walking around with her head in it all day. At breakfast she had started eating her cereal without putting milk on it, even though she hated dry cereal, and even Irene, who was by no means a morning person, had managed to notice that she had been acting vague. She hadn't been able to concentrate at her lessons, and she had only mumbled half-hearted replies to Beth's chatter. She knew that if Beth and Irene were worried, they'd just put down her spacey behaviour to her being tired. But the truth was, she wasn't feeling tired at all. She felt like she'd slept deeper last night than she had ever slept in her life. It left her feeling restless, and preoccupied. It was the first time since last night that she had had time to think about the dream properly; now she was alone and was in no hurry, she carefully thought through every detail.

She should've known better than to trust a mysterious man's offer, and especially when she had met him there of all places. He had said 'a dream of the past', but he hadn't specified whose past she would dream about. But just why was she dreaming about Jareth's past? It had been Jareth, of that she was sure, though the scared little boy she had dreamed about bore no resemblance to the sinister, imposing adult Goblin King she had met and outmatched. In the dream, she had just known it was him, there was no mistake. And yet… was it Jareth's true past, or a fabrication? After all, it was just a dream; it didn't have to be true. And why was she seeing this stuff anyway? The Jareth she knew was proud and arrogant, confident of his own superiority; surely he wouldn't want her, of all people, to see him like this, so young and weak and defenseless. It was so unlike him, like a different person; to look at him then, she never would've suspected that the scared, humble little goblin boy could grow up to become the rotten personality he was now… so how had it happened? She hadn't had any other dreams after she had finally dropped back off to sleep in the early hours. Was there more to the tale? How had he gotten from the oubliette to the throne room?

With a start, she realized she had walked straight past her locker. She sighed vexedly and doubled back, paying attention to her surroundings this time. She had just taken out the bag of costumes and was closing her locker when she heard something squeak on the linoleum behind her and turned, feeling an irrational sense of alarm.

"Hey, Sarah." The large boy with spiky black hair who had spoken was loitering in the corridor with two friends. She knew these boys; they were her age and were in some of her classes. She remembered having years ago been in the same homeroom as the one who had spoken to her… now what had his name been?...oh, yeah-

"Hi Corey," she replied evenly, getting her breath back – _really, what had she expected?!_ - and wondering what they wanted with her. They weren't the kind of people she normally talked to at school. They could be classified as part of the school's 'popular crowd', since the 'popular' girls in her year seemed to hang around with them, probably more for the sake of liking attention from anyone and everyone than any actual mutual attraction to these boys. These boys were punkish and silly, always in and out of the principal's office, throwing cans at teachers' cars and pulling other stupid pranks. Sarah wasn't part of the 'popular crowd', and never remembered having spoken to these boys before, though they had probably pushed past her in a busy corridor on at least one occasion during their school life.

"I heard you got a part in the play yesterday," Corey began, speaking with a false-sounding casual tone that unwittingly implied that this was a rehearsed speech. She nodded, wondering where this was going. "You got the part of Tit-ain-iya," – he pronounced the name with difficulty, obviously unfamiliar with it – "the same part Caitlin auditioned for."

Ah. Now she understood. She remembered seeing Caitlin, one of the popular girls, at the try-outs. She had been surprised that the girl had bothered with something as 'uncool' as the drama club; she had guessed from Caitlin's audition that she had fancied herself as a Faerie Queen as well as homecoming queen. After Sarah had unexpectedly gotten Titania's role, she hadn't seen Caitlin again, although she suspected that the other girl had stormed out in a huff, which was her general response to things that didn't go her way. Seeing Corey's bulk advancing towards her, she had a bad feeling. Corey was one of Caitlin's hangers-on, and she had him wrapped around her fuchsia-tipped pinkie finger; she may have put him up to something…

"Not only did you get the part, but you didn't even audition for it. Which looks real suspicious when your mom is _in theatre_." He said the words 'in theatre' disdainfully, as though they were 'garbage sorting' or 'rock collecting'. Which all probably equated to much the same thing by Corey's standards.

Sarah shrugged. "My mom isn't even in town, so she didn't exactly help me get the part. I didn't even expect to get that part. Like you said, I didn't even try out for it. Why, is Caitlin upset about it?"

Corey shrugged. "Well, she thought it was unfair, was all" – funny how Caitlin's sense of fairness only came into play when she herself felt wronged, Sarah reflected wryly – "and she thought perhaps I should come ask you 'bout it."

"What, exactly, did she want you to ask me?" Sarah was getting sick of all this tough-guy posturing. The charade was obvious, but that didn't make her feel any less nervous. "Caitlin can come and ask me whatever she wants, whenever she wants."

"Perhaps. Depends what kind of asking she wants done." Corey took a step forward; so did his two friends. Sarah backed against the lockers, feeling alone and trapped. No one was around to interrupt. Which probably suited the boys just fine.

"This is kinda unnecessary, isn't it?" she asked, trying to reason with them. "I didn't think Caitlin even liked theatre. She's not in the drama club."

"So? She tried out, didn't she? Why should you _drama nerds_ get the roles all the time? Why not let someone else have a go? Especially when you could get all the parts you want through your mom. Why not tell that teacher who's running the thing to let Caitlin have this one, since she actually auditioned for it?"

Sarah's cheeks burned. _They actually had the nerve to…?!_

"The teacher's a tough judge of auditions," she said stiffly. "She said so herself. I doubt I could convince her to change her mind. I'm sorry Caitlin didn't get the part, but-"

"And just what are you saying about Caitlin's acting?" For the first time, there was a slightly dangerous-sounding edge in Corey's voice as he detected what he thought was an insult against 'his girl'.

"I'm not saying anything about it." Sarah tried to sidle past them, watching warily as Corey's cronies shadowed her. "If you're done talking, I have to go-"

"We're not done yet!"

She tried to dart away, but one of the boys stepped in and blocked her path. She tried to shove him aside, but he pushed her back against the lockers. The boys grinned. They were enjoying themselves.

"Let me go! Just leave me alone!" Corey stepped in front of her; starting to panic, she dropped her bag and blindly raked her nails across his outstretched arm, making a break for it as he recoiled.

"Ah-! Bitch!"

"Ouch!" One of them grabbed her by her hair and wrenched her back.

_Snap!_

They all froze at the sound. Uncertain, the boy let her go. Something tinkled and fell from her hair. The butterfly clip lay on the ground, its wings snapped down the centre; he had broken it as he grabbed her. Corey, rubbing his wrist where several parallel red lines stood out against his skin, looked at the clip and snickered.

"Fancy yourself a fairy princess, do ya? Well, see if you can fix this with magic!" Sarah's heart fluttered in dismay as he brought his heavy boot over the beret and prepared to stomp on it...

_Crack!_

The boys froze again. Corey had jumped back instinctively as something dropped past him and shattered on the floor, spraying him with shards of glass. He looked up; the light bulb had dropped from its socket, landing right between him and Sarah. The empty light-fitting swung ominously.

Hiding his unease, Corey curled his lip in a 'gangsta' snarl. "Think about what we've said," he muttered threateningly, but only half-heartedly, and motioning to the other boys, they skulked off. They seemed to have lost interest; Caitlin's disappointment in not getting the role would pass. Getting hit by light bulbs wasn't worth it Sarah watched them go, nerves still jangling. She bent down and sadly picked up the two halves of Irene's present. It wasn't fair – it had been brand new, and something she had really liked. And it had been broken on the very first day she had worn it! The boys had long lumbered off. She felt relieved that they had finally left her alone, but something still didn't seem right… Glancing around at the floor, she saw no signs of broken glass. She looked up. The bulb was in the socket, only swinging slightly in the draughty corridor. But it had been broken a minute ago…

She glanced around wildly. No one else was here, there was no one visible, not outside, not anywhere. She shook her head. _Nope, just don't think about it. It couldn't be. It was just a coincidence. It just fell…_ She looked up. The light bulb looked back like a single gleaming eye, glimmering in the light from outside… _shining, like a crystal ball…_

She lowered her head abruptly. _No. That's the last thing I need to think about, with the play and school and the weird dreams, and everything else! Remember what happened last time you meddled with these things! Just leave it alone, and it'll go away! _She snatched up the bag of costumes and hurried off down the hallway, carefully tucking her broken hairclip into her pocket.

Outside, at least ten yards from the school building and sheltered by a small stand of trees, a gloved hand extended. Piece by piece, glass shards appeared, arranging themselves to form a perfect sphere; the cracks melded together until it was whole, without so much as a single scratch and looking as though it had never shattered on the floor of the school corridor. Satisfied, the hand closed around it; there was a sharp rustle of wings, and nothing more.

* * *

"I can't believe they'd do that!"

Beth's voice was high and loud with indignation. Several people in the street turned to look at them as they walked past shops, Beth waving a drinking straw to punctuate her words.

"Of all the-! That is just so over-the-top! And over a high school play! I bet Caitlin doesn't even like plays!"

"I said as much to the boys," Sarah replied, taking a sip of her smoothie. "Caitlin will get over it."

Beth snorted. "Who does she think she is, Elizabeth Taylor?! Sheesh! And over Shakespeare! Why would she, of all people, bother?! What a bitch! Hey, what do you think of that one?" She pointed to a loose green blouse covered in white polka-dots that hung in a shop window. "I could wear it to my cousin's birthday party; he might have some cute friends coming along!"

Sarah grinned. "They'll think you're a peppermint humbug!"

Beth grinned and chewed on the end of her straw. "At least they'll know I'm tasty!"

"You tart!"

"Y'see, even you think I'm sweet!"

Sarah flicked a bit of icy-cold smoothie at her with her straw and, giggling, the two girls raced down the street. Beth had promised Sarah she would take her out to celebrate getting by her audition, but she had had to work at her after-school job the previous day, so this trip to the mall had been belated. Having stopped for drinks at a juice-bar, they were strolling back towards their homes as the street lamps started to come on.

"You're lucky you haven't had to work lately," Beth said after taking a slurp of her drink, the two girls having gotten over their scuffle and fallen into step again. "That place where you work sure is easy on you!"

"Mr Colter was away for a week visiting relatives, so he closed up the shop while he was away. He's opening up again tomorrow, and I have to be there; I've been lucky how it was timed around the audition!"

"Yep! All I can say is, you deserved to get the part more than anyone else! Things just worked out!" Beth frowned, sipping thoughtfully. No, it hadn't quite _all_ worked out for her friend. "What will you do about the hairclip?"

Sarah grimaced and touched her jeans' pocket. "I dunno. Irene will be devastated! She was so proud that she picked out something I liked, she said I should wear it for the play." Beth nodded sympathetically. She had long listened to Sarah's accounts of ongoing trials and tribulations with her stepmother, and had been supportive when they had finally started to get along with each other. "Maybe if we take it back to the store, they might…"

The girls shared a doubtful look. The clip had been a department store item; it wasn't likely the store would refund or replace it if it had been broken after purchase.

"Well, maybe a jeweller could fix it," Beth suggested. "There's one round the corner, you could go in and ask if they- Hey! What's that store?" she stopped midway through her own sentence and wandered over to have a look. Shaking her head at her friend's short attention span, Sarah followed her.

"Cool! Didn't there used to be a discount store here? This looks way more interesting! What is it, a night club?" She said the words 'night club' with the feverish excitement that adolescents generally felt towards 'grown-up' pastimes. "Woo, looks fancy! A French name and everything! Hey, get this- 'opening soon, innovative new night spot, an all-purpose venue for live music, open-mike nights, children's entertainment, amateur drama-' hey! They're gonna put on plays! Maybe you could do that!... Though you're practically on your way to Broadway now, by the time this place gets set up it might be beneath you. What do y-… hey, what's up?"

Beth finally realized Sarah wasn't paying any attention to her; she was standing a few feet back, staring at the shop's sign. She started at Beth's question and quickly turned to face her, looking as though she had just snapped out of a trance.

"Er, nothing… I was just trying to figure out what the sign means."

Beth rolled her eyes; always the cultured outlook! Sarah was such an 'artiste' with an 'e'!

"I dunno, it's French, and you know French isn't exactly my best subject." Sarah gave her a small, apologetic smile; Beth always got her 'le', 'la' and 'les' hopelessly mixed up. Now she was squinting fixedly up at the sign, nose wrinkling in concentration. "I think I might have seen that word before, I think… isn't it something like 'to think', or 'to remember', or…"

"'Oublier', the verb 'to forget'…" Sarah murmured distractedly.

Beth snapped her fingers, looking impressed. "Yeah, you remembered it! I'm hopeless at these foreign languages. Why make us learn more than one when one is all we'll ever need or use? Hmph, if it means 'forget', it's a silly name for a night club – you don't exactly want people to forget your business if you want to make money, do you? Unless they mean they'll 'forget' your age at the door… reckon we could get in? It says they have kids' entertainment, but that stuff is usually so boring, men in animal suits and lame old puppet shows and stuff, and besides we're not kids any more. Reckon if I wore my mum's shoes, the ones with the really thick wedge heels, and made myself up really heavily…"

"If you went at night when it was really dark and you plastered on the make-up… maybe it would work… but they might mistake you for a drag queen!" Managing to think up a rejoinder, Sarah dodged the straw Beth aimed at her with a devious grin. Beth was always like that about grown-up things, like cocktail parties and dating boys and going out dancing. Sarah didn't see what all the fuss was about. She had tried a sip of champagne once, when her mother and Jeremy had taken her out for dinner at a swanky restaurant to celebrate the opening of one of their shows, and it hadn't been all that great, a bit like bubbly white vinegar, really… _and as for dating and dancing…_

Once again, she stopped her own thoughts before they strayed into dangerous territory.

She followed Beth down the street, trying to pay attention to her friend's constant, incessant chatter; but she couldn't help looking back one last time at the ornately curling letters on the night club's sign:

**"LES OUBLIETTE"**

* * *

The doorway to the throne room slammed open. The lord's servants, already assembled there, looked inquisitively at their master's entrance.

"I am back," he announced as though this already obvious fact was penultimate, elaborating no further. The underlings looked at each other, silently questioning each other – _who was brave enough to ask…?_

"Err… did you win?" a timid voice ventured.

He whirled to face them; they all flinched instinctively, waiting for rants and rages…

The Dream King merely sighed, as though the weight of the world rested on his one syllable: "No."

Curiosity overcoming caution, Matthew flapped into the air to hover before him. "Was there a fight? Did Lucifer give you any trouble? Did you get the woman you were looking for?"

"No, Matthew. No… and no." Gradually getting more and more wearisome, this last 'no' was the most dejected of them all.

"What happened, Milord?" Abel, emboldened by Morpheus' tolerance of Matthew, managed to ask.

"I'll tell you later," was the curt reply, and with that, turning his back upon them all, he strode from the room.

He meandered down some stairs which were not attached to any walls or floors, but were held up by the Dreaming itself, floating in space. Down he went, until he came to his own private rooms, a rather opulently-disguised storeroom for various dream-articles. Upon the dream-space – for that was all that supported it – hung a large mirror in an ornate frame. He stopped before it and glanced into it, as he did so taking a large key, its handle modelled with a similar design to the mirror's frame, from his robe and inspecting it. Looking into the glass before him, he saw his own semblance, and a figure likewise holding up the same key; however, in this vision, these were not one and the same. Another figure with pale, almost anemic colouring and a pair of bat-like wings protruding from his shoulder blades, held up the key for Morpheus to see.

_"That was the last of the gates to be sealed," the blonde man told him. "Hell is closed." He held up a dagger with a skull modelled into its hilt, offering it to the Dream King. "Morpheus, you must cut off my wings for me. It is the last thing that needs doing."_

_ "Very well, Lucifer," he had replied politely, as though there were no past animosity between them. "If that is truly what you wish." And so, with careful strokes, he had cut the wings from the fallen angel's back; Lucifer, teeth clenched, had not so much as flinched as thick rivulets of blood flowed down his back. Once they were removed, he tossed his own wings scornfully aside and turned back to face him._

_ "Perhaps you'll find the woman, Dream," he said, recalling Morpheus' original task. "They are out there. All of them. My little disembodied refugees, fluttering through the dimensions." He gave him a smile that recalled a fraction of his devilish nature. "I once swore I would destroy you, did I not?"_

_"Yes," he admitted, reluctant, his face set. He had come prepared for a confrontation; if he must face it now, he would not shrink from it…_

_ However, Lucifer merely offered him the key. "Here. This is for you, Dream Lord. It is yours now. Perhaps it will destroy you and perhaps it won't." His smile stretched at the edges, becoming pointed, sharp; almost wounding. "But I doubt it will make your life any easier."_

And so, Morpheus now held the key to Hell in his hand. And it wasn't only the key he held, but also what it opened – Hell, all its pain farms and torture houses and pits of inextinguishable fire - all were now under his dominion. But that wasn't all. Lucifer had expelled all Hell's inhabitants before locking its gates – all its demons, and all its tortured souls. Which meant that though Dream now owned Hell, Nada, the one thing he sought, was still lost to him, cast out somewhere across the cosmos' many realms, even further from him than she had been before… now he had no idea whatsoever of her whereabouts…

_No, it did not make his life any easier._

The frustration arose within him; his fist clenched tighter and tighter on the key until, his temper arisen, he lashed out, striking the mirror. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces. He sighed. It made no difference; he had gone to Hell expecting ordeals, and now he had them, though they certainly were not what he had expected. No, life wasn't any easier, but he must shoulder the burden. He must do what was right.

Casting aside his own problems for a moment, he waved his hand over the frame, instantly restoring the glass to its original spotless sheen, and used it to scan his original domain, observing the changes that had come to the Dreaming during his brief absence. Remembering the boon he had granted to the Goblin King, he sought out the human woman, Sarah Williams. Yes, there she was, currently in his domain, but she had resisted entering it, he sensed it; she had willed herself not to sleep, not to dream. Yet inevitably, she must. She had accepted the dream; now she must dream it. He wondered how far she had progressed through it…

Oh, this was…!

He allowed himself to continue to observe, despite his preoccupations. He enjoyed this point in the dream. He was a being almost older than time itself, far too old to appreciate nostalgia; nevertheless, he watched the dream unfurl with fond memories. This had been the first time he had met directly with he who would become Jareth the Goblin King…

* * *

In the depths of the dungeon pit, all was quiet. The young goblin, too exhausted to sob any longer, was dozing fitfully with his head on his knees, the tracks of his tears still wet upon his cheeks. The hands above him, usually chattering and complaining amongst themselves, had gone strangely quiet. The glass globe had slipped from his grasp and now rested on the floor beside him. Unbeknownst to him, it glowed softly, and its depths were animated; images could be seen of people, _people with mouths silently stretched in terror, arms flailing against the encroaching darkness, hands raised beseechingly, begging, wailing unrestrainedly, grovelling before unseen conquerors as more hands pulled them back. Images of all different people, but all united in their suffering; all reaching out, shielding themselves, entreating with outstretched hands..._

The real hands above were silent, motionless, as though they too were sleeping. In contrast, the boy moaned softly, eyelids creasing as he frowned, whimpering now as though he were in pain, flinching as terrors unseen clawed at his vulnerable young mind, shifting restlessly in a troubled sleep. The vision in the sphere changed; instead of the frenzied faces of distraught prisoners, it now contained a person, the squat figure of a woman with strangely greyish-toned skin and irregularly sharp teeth, giving her an almost Goblish appearance. She was completely unclad except for a single ring on her finger with a cruel, curved hook on it, which she absently used to poke at her own lip. She appeared to actually look out of the crystal at the boy, cognitive of his presence, not just another inexistent vision. Slipping the ring from her lips, she instead parted them to speak, though the boy, still sleeping, did not seem to hear her clearly-spoken words:

_"Brother, I stand in my gallery as I hold your sigil. Will you hear me?" This 'sigil' was a charm in the shape of what appeared to be a bizarre mask, with blank eyes and a strange protrudence where its mouth should be, somewhat resembling a WWII-era gasmask…_

_"You summon me, my sister. What do you want?" A second, indistinct figure appeared in the crystal; it was little more than a dark silhouette, rake-thin, like a living sliver of shadow._

_"This small being is manipulating both our domains, converting the despair felt by lost souls into dreams. Can you attend to him? It concerns your realm more than mine. He is making their grief insubstantial, but he is only young and it is taxing him – his powers are as yet uncontrolled and may be volatile. Can you help him?"_

_"Yes, I will. I thank you for drawing it to my attention. I felt a pull in the fabric of the Dreaming, but I had not yet followed the threads to their source."_

Both figures disappeared from within the crystal orb; at the same moment, in the pit, a new hand appeared out of nowhere, almost skeletally thin and white; it came to rest on the young goblin's head. It soft weight seemed to calm him; he stopped writhing in his sleep as soon as he felt its touch. Slowly he woke and raised his head - or rather, he appeared to wake. A figure stood before him in the darkness. This person wore full armour, like the adult goblins all did, but unlike the shabby, cobbled-together suits of mismatched irons most goblins wore, this man wore a complete outfit, and the entire suit was black, as though it had been dipped in pitch. Somehow, he could make out his silhouette in the dungeon's impenetrable darkness; he seemed a denser blot of black against the shadows. As he became more aware of him, Jareth grew more fearful.

"W-who are you?" he asked in a small voice. "What are you doing here?"

"I am here because of your dreams." The voice that replied seemed to have been formed out of the very darkness itself; it made him shiver like a soft, cold breeze across his skin.

"My dreams? How do you…?"

"I know your dreams because, in essence, they are mine, a gift to all beings in existence. Sometimes they are a welcome gift, other times not. It is not my place to say who has which dreams, every being decides for him- or herself; I am merely their distributor and overseer. I am the Wielder of Sands, the Lord Shaper – I am the King of All Night's Dreaming."

The king paused to let his statement have dramatic effect. Realizing he was in the presence of royalty, the lad's eyes widened, and he tried to wipe his tears away on his grimy sleeve. It wasn't fit to be seen crying by such an august personage. He had read about kings before, and he knew how someone was supposed to act when granted an audience with a monarch.

"If you be the Ruler of Dreams, o Lord of the Night, I beseech you, please; can you help me escape these nightmares?" he asked meekly, bowing his small head in entreaty.

The Dream King watched him steadily. He had to admit he was impressed by the young goblin's manner; it was every bit courteous and correct, despite the wretched circumstances he was in. "Yes, I can," he said, feeling generous, but adding as was his duty: "though I can't free you directly. You must free yourself."

"B-but how…?" the little goblin glanced around blindly in the darkness, looking up the way he had fallen in. He could just make out the amassed hands in the dim vertical passage, laying more still than leaves in a windless forest. _How could he get back up that way…?_

Morpheus looked up at them, too. "You have a gift, little goblin. Your mother must have passed it on to you; I feel the essence of her still present within the object she once owned." The Dream King bent gracefully and picked up the glass orb from the floor. In his hand, it began to glow steadily, illuminating the chamber with a softly-radiating light. Though the light flooded the cramped chamber, for the first time revealing its dank, dripping walls, putrid corners and piles of Goblish skeletons which were strangely - or perhaps, expectedly - missing their arms, the boy paid no attention to it at all; all he saw was the glowing visage in the sphere's centre. The light seemed to radiate from the image of a woman with her long golden hair flowing about her, her blue eyes kind as a summer sky as she seemed to smile down at the boy.

"Mother," he murmured softly, reverently. He'd never been able to produce such a clear image of her on his own…

"She was more than just a gypsy woman who knew a few entertaining tricks," the Dream King continued. "She had a slight ability to manipulate dreams; specifically, she could make them visible to others through this-" he indicated the crystal ball – "and to some extent, she could make them tangible. Lucien, my librarian, would often distress that she would deplete the stocks of our library, so often did she dream books into existence, and hence cause the dream versions of them to be destroyed on our shelves. It seems you possess a similar gift, yet yours is far stronger."

The image in the crystal changed. The feeling of wellbeing that had temporarily washed over young Jareth disappeared instantly as the tormented souls reappeared within the sphere, howling and writhing. He shuddered and looked away as his dreams reappeared before his eyes.

"You dreamed the dreams of those souls and turned their despair into intangible visions, effectively cancelling out their feelings of distress. You see, they have stopped wailing; they are no longer suffering within the persistence of memory. You set them at peace, at the cost of having their nightmares for them. All of them. It has caused you much distress."

The boy started. He hadn't realized that… that he could dream other people's dreams as his own… "I-I didn't mean to do that…"

"Perhaps, but nevertheless, you did, and by doing so you did them a service, as well as my sister; they are no longer in her charge, she has catered to them now for decades. You are not yet in control of this gift, but you can learn to wield it in time, and you can use it to leave this place."

"I can?" He glanced about at the walls – they did not look at all dream-like, they were solid stone, impenetrable, not showing the least crack through which a bug could escape. "But how?"

"I shall show you. Watch." Morpheus handed the crystal back to the boy – his hand, felt in the briefest of touches, was quite cool, but also soft, like the dream-fog that gently caresses the mind of the dreamer as they drift off to sleep – and he went to a corner of the dungeon. He lifted a door that had been lying on the ground, the hinges still hanging from it, and approached the wall.

"You see these frames?" he asked. Jareth looked. Indeed, he hadn't noticed them until now. The wall was full of what looked like wooden door-frames which had been filled in with stone. As he watched, the Dream King fitted the door into a frame, closed it, and paused with his hand on one of the knobs – this door had two of them.

"With your ability, these frames can become portals to any domain you may dream of visiting. All you need to do is will it hard enough, build a clean connection through the dream-space, and open the portal." He suited the action to the words. Jareth gaped.

The door in the solid-rock wall opened up to a featureless plain, a landscape painted bog-brown and rendered bleak by a weak ray of sunlight breaking through some murky clouds. It was, in fact, a bog; most of the Underground was a flat mire, punctuated occasionally by a stunted bush. In the distance, Jareth could make out some black dots moving about and a faint pillar of smoke; a goblin army camp. The sight made a thrill of panic go through him as he remembered Snirick and his lackeys.

"Not very inviting," Morpheus commented, echoing his thoughts. He closed the door, temporarily plunging them back into darkness, then reopenedit in the other direction, using the second door knob.

* * *

_Author's Note: Lines in this chapter are quoted from the_ manga Death: At Death's Door _by Jill Thompson, which in turn based on the _Seasons of the Mist _story arc from_ Sandman.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Chapter 5_**

_But down in the Underground  
You'll find someone true  
Down in the Underground  
A land serene, a crystal moon_

* * *

"Wow…!"

The scene that they now saw through the doorway was a striking contrast to the previous one. The same sunlight seemed mellower here, filtered through the whispering leaves of willow trees which daintily dipped the tips of their branches into pristine, almost glass-clear waters.

Morpheus stood aside and let him pass out onto the gentle slope that led down to the lake. He felt the gentle wind ruffle his hair, heard birds twitter and call in the trees overhead. It was amazing. It looked almost too perfect, like an illustration from a storybook; and yet, it was vividly real - it seemed more real than anything else he had ever encountered before. He shut his eyes against the gentle sunlight - almost blinding after the intense darkness of the dungeon pit - then reopened them. The vision didn't fade away. It didn't live only in pages, disappearing when the book's cover was closed. It was a beauty unlike any Jareth had ever seen; it was even more stunning than the visions his mother used to conjure for him, made so by the fact that it was actually real, laying right at his feet.

"This place will suit you well for now, I think," Morpheus said, gazing out at the calm waters with what seemed to be a look of satisfaction upon his impassive face. "Practice your skills, Your Highness, and dream well. Perhaps we'll meet again, somewhere in the Dreaming."

"Thank you, milord!" Jareth took his eyes off the beautiful landscape long enough to sink to his knees in gratitude, as he did so marveling at the Dream King's words… _had this royal personage just called him 'Your Highness'…?_

Acknowledging his thanks with a slight inclination of his head, the Dream King turned and began to walk towards the water. He continued to step across its surface; it shimmered slightly where his foot fell, but didn't break. Gradually, he receded into the distance, and the mists which hung over the water swallowed him, making him fade from view. Jareth knelt for a moment longer, watching the spot where he'd disappeared. He had never known any words but harsh ones, save from his mother; he was used to being called 'runt' or 'twerp' or 'rat dung' or 'dog weed', if not worse. He had never, ever really thought of himself as a goblin prince, though that was what he _was_… _for one as prestigious as this to call him by such a title…_

He turned to look back the way he had come. The portal back into the pit still hung open, a deep, dark cave in the rock face behind him, framed by the incongruous wooden door frame. With a last scornful look at it, he turned his back on it and, scrambling to his feet, went down to the water. He was almost afraid after watching the Dream King walk across it that it would melt away at his fingertips like smoke, but it didn't. It was pleasantly cool on his hands and face; he sipped, and it tasted purer than anything he had ever tasted before. Looking around in wonder, he began to explore, meandering amongst the trees.

After a while he came to a flowering tree with blossoms falling from it like snow; it stood in a circle of white petals which smelled heavenly after the dank, stale air of the oubliette. Large, sunset-coloured fruits hung plentifully on its branches. Hesitating, almost as though he was afraid to, he cupped one in his hand. Its surface was soft, like thistledown. Gently, he pulled; it gave and came away from its branch. Hesitantly, not sure what to expect, he bit into it.

It broke like waves over his tongue, full of juice, the sweetness almost making him swoon. It was unlike anything he had ever tasted, almost like _euphoria…_

Countless hours spent reading in the dark, musty library were blown away upon the freshness of the breeze, forgotten along with the terribleness of the oubliette. He sat down on the mossy bank, enjoying bite after bite, rejoicing at each one he took. His eating was almost hindered by the uncontrollable smile upon his face; letting peach juice dribble down his chin and arms, he laughed, a little peal of joyous laughter, such as he had never managed before, now spilling from his lips.

The lake rippled, the branches swayed, the birds twittered overhead; he lay back contentedly on the mossy bank, taking in every new sensation this remarkable place had to offer. He wasn't just reading about life outside the castle any more. He was _living_ it.

* * *

She had actually enjoyed the last dream. She had been glad when he had made it out of the oubliette. Why, she wasn't sure. Two nights ago, she would've thought that Jareth deserved anything and everything bad that might happen to him… but_ now…_

She stared out the window, watching the trees sway in the breeze. Perhaps it was because of the vision of the lake. It had made her feel so at peace; every aspect of it was etched into her memory. She wished she could've gone there herself, sat on the grass and listened to the trees murmur… it reminded her of similarly peaceful afternoons spent at the park… hours spent lying by the water, doing nothing but staring at the sky, and dreaming… _such a beautiful place…_

The part about the peach, however, recalled bitter remebrances. A bit of her grudge against Jareth came back; she put aside the little goblin boy for a minute and remembered the impudently-proud Goblin King who had taken Toby away from her…

She remembered another man as well, the one she had met in the Labyrinth, or at least in the Labyrinth in her dreams. _So he had been the King of All Night's Dreaming…_

She wondered if that was where she had felt she knew him from… She had had the strange feeling that she had seen him before; like a recurring dream that was forgotten upon waking, but the familiarity of it still vaguely felt. She had been _sure_, as he had turned to walk into the distance, that just for a second, the Dream King had looked at _her_, at _Sarah_, and seen her watching, though she hadn't been part of the dream herself. She had felt him look at her with an _understanding_, as though he acknowledged that she was dreaming the dream he had given her…

So he knew Jareth too. Was that why she was having these dreams? Had Jareth asked him to give them to her? Why would he do that? What could he gain from it? And were these dreams telling her the truth?

"Watch it there, Miss Williams," the science teacher suddenly said at her elbow, jolting her from her thoughts. "Your rat just high-tailed it out of your maze and into the glass cabinet. If it breaks anything in there, it'll have to be replaced out of your own pocket."

"Sorry, Sir," she said, swiftly darting forward and snatching up the sneaky rodent as it scurried between two beakers. It squeaked and squirmed in her hands, eyes darting fearfully. She carefully placed it back in the cardboard maze she had been using for that day's experiment. Nearby, a pair of girls fussed and cooed over their rat; beyond them, a boy was egging his specimen on through his maze, watching its gradual progress towards the cheese at the opposite end.

"Isn't this a bit cruel?" Sarah asked the science teacher, watching as her rat cautiously trod the miniature labyrinth, sniffing fearfully as it reached a blind corner. It could smell the tempting aroma of the cheese, but it seemed convinced that a hungry cat lurked behind every wall. "It seems unfair to put them through this, it's like we're taunting them…"

"Huh, you girls," the teacher scoffed, "Treating these things like pets. The rat doesn't know what it's doing. It just wants the reward at the end; its determination to reach its goal means it chooses each new turn it takes blindly, without any prior knowledge or deductive thought, creating an algorithm at complete random. It's an interesting exercise, and the rat isn't harmed by it; to it, the whole thing is probably just like a game."

_Well, a game of cat and mouse, maybe,_ Sarah thought to herself, watching her rat hit a dead end and snuffle perplexedly at the blank wall. As the teacher moved on, she glared resentfully down at the cardboard labyrinth before her; then, checking that no one was watching, she took the small cube of cheese from the end of the maze and carefully placed it directly in front of the rodent, which had been floundering several corridors away from it. It baulked for a moment, sniffed hesitantly, then crept forward and began to nibble busily. As it did, its tiny pink tongue lapped at her fingertip, as though in appreciation. Sarah smiled, feeling an uncanny companionship with the tiny creature.

_I know just how it feels, to go through that sort of thing._

She let her thoughts return to her dreams. Perhaps there wasn't any truth in them; perhaps they were just strange, meaningless visions, because they weren't about the Underground she knew. In the last dream, when the door had first opened out of the oubliette onto the dreary brown bog, there had been nothing outside but a flat, soggy plain, stretching as far as the eye could see; there had been _no labyrinth there at all…_

* * *

"My Lord?"

A raspy voice broke in on his meditations. "My Lord, we have many guests at the gate."

"Tell them to go away," he muttered irritably. He didn't feel like dealing with anyone right now. He had enough things to worry about. He had just come from a conversation with his sibling, his favourite sister and most trusted friend, whom he had always relied upon for advice. This time, however – just like that other time, when he had been verbally besieged by Desire – she had been of little help, actually siding against him…

_"What do you advise me to do?" he had asked her, hoping she would help him from his dilemma, from his unwanted possession of Hell…_

_"How should I know?" she had retorted. "What do you want to do? Open a ski resort? Turn it into a theme park? Sell it to the highest bidder?" She had leaned far out of her picture frame in his gallery to give him a pointed look. "It's _your_ choice! You own the place! What do _you_ want to do with Hell?" She had then drawn back, sighing wearily and giving him the tiniest of sympathetic smiles. "You'll figure something out, and soon I hope. I gotta run. There's this whole can of worms opened here, and _no one else_-" she had placed obvious emphasis on the words "-seems to be doing anything about it… the dead are coming back, little brother…"_

So once more he was left alone, sitting brooding on his chamber floor as though he had sunk down underneath the weight of his task. He was in no mood to deal with these unwanted intrusions.

"But…" the griffin perched atop a column, hesitating between obedience and duty. He remembered the conclave of denizens and spirits at the Dreaming's gates, demanding he ensure all of them passage; duty won over. "But they are envoys, my Lord. Some of them have been here as honoured guests, some are gods. All of them are puissant…"

Dream sighed, considering. Once again, he had been forced into a responsibility he did not want. Whilst others might covet Hell – as his sister put it, "the most desirable plot of psychic real estate in the whole order of created things" – he only wished to be rid of it so he could get on with his own affairs… _so he could restart his search for Nada…_

"Let them in."

Once more, unwanted duties held complete dominion over him. He must set this right, before he could turn his attention to his own, _personal_ duties…

The great gates to the castle opened, light mists of dream-sands sweeping aside as they did so, beckoning the visitors inside. "My Lord bids you enter and apologizes for the delay," the griffin announced. "He will meet you in the throne room. Please enter and announce yourselves."

A strange procession of beings filtered through the doors, a gathering of all different pantheons such as the Dreaming - or any other place, for that matter - had never seen before. There were representatives from the Norse gods, Odin himself leading them; there was the jackal-headed Anubis with several members of the Egyptian mythos; there was a deity in an elaborately-styled Japanese kimono, a genie clad in sumptuous silken wraps, even a little girl in clown make-up who wouldn't have looked out-of-place in Dream's youngest sister's realm. There was a former demon from Hell, little more than a jagged-edged black shape, like a child's fear of the dark incarnate, infinite sets of sinister eyes and pointed, predatory teeth studding his form; in direct contrast, a pair of angels swooped serenely in, clothed in soft white robes and with large feathered wings folded majestically against their backs, announcing themselves as present "only to observe".

With his guests milling in the throne room, Morpheus met them in stately ceremony, wearing officious robes that befitted his rank and the occasion, heavy with many folds of dream-cloth and extensively embroidered with mystic designs. "I welcome you all to the Hearth of the Dreaming," he began respectfully. "You all seek the same thing, this key-" almost every eye in the room lit upon it with a greedy glint as he held it up "-and what it represents. There will be a banquet for you and any others who arrive betimes. Then we will talk." With a gracious wave of his hand, long tables appeared, laden with every type of banquet-food imaginable; much like his clothes could alter their perception like a mirage to suit the respective cultures of those who gazed upon him, Morpheus' dream cuisine could cater to the tastes of all present. They, however, concerned themselves less with the sumptuous fare their host had provided, focusing more with what they hoped he would subsequently provide them with. All of their thoughts ran much the same:

_"The key must be ours!"_

* * *

He stayed by the lake for at least a month – he lost track of time as each day passed by in further delight. He adored living here, exploring the beautiful countryside during the day, living off fruits and fish which he found plentiful on the trees and in the waters; then curling up at night on a bed of moss, drapes of willow-leaves sheltering him, a ghostly glass-like moon peeping in at him as he slept soundly beneath its gentle light. It was a peaceful existence, unlike any he had ever dared imagine for himself.

Not all of his time spent in this utopian retreat was spent in idleness; grateful for the somewhat scant instruction the Dream King had given him, he practised hard every day, concentrating on his imaginings, letting them take form in his crystal and trying hard to convert them into actuality. When he struggled to produce a single sharp-edged image, he tried not to let it discourage him – he remembered the Dream King's words:

_"You must free yourself." _

And so, day after day, he continued to practice. At first it was difficult; but gradually, it became easier.

One of his first successes was to turn his crystal into a facsimile of a peach. He pictured its rosy colour, imagined its sweet taste bursting in his mouth, told himself he could feel its fuzzy skin beneath his fingertips instead of the crystal's hard sheen – and lo, gradually, he began to actually feel it. Inspecting the rosy-cheeked fruit that had replaced the crystal in his hand with a critical gaze, he hesitantly raised it to his mouth, half-afraid he would break his teeth on it, knowing that the more he feared it would happen, the more the dream would slip towards nightmare and become true. The first mouthful was satisfactory, edible at least; but as his confidence grew, it improved with each mouthful. At last, he turned the bare pip back into the original glass orb. He grinned delightedly, proud of himself.

As the days passed, he grew more confident in handling the crystal. He realized that more than merely showing him things within its depths, he could also make the crystal itself do whatever he could dream it doing. At his command, he tossed it lightly, yet it hurtled upwards, efforlessly finding his hand again as it came back down. He sent it skimming across the lake, barely disturbing the water's smooth surface; after completing a wide arc, it would come bouncing back to him on the ripples, like some sort of spherical boomerang. As his magic experiments grew more ambitious, he even began to develop a form of showmanship which would've put the boy-magician Brandon Himmel to shame. He wasn't just gaining more knowledge and confidence in magic; he was developing an outright flair for it.

He started to experiment with other forms of magic which he thought might suit his abilities. He remembered one of the books he had read back in his library, one about the 'Fae folk' and how they could use 'glamour', a magic that could change the way they appeared to others. He wondered if he could do it himself – after all, if he could conjure up dreams, it was merely a matter of imposing his dreams on other people, making them see him the way he wished to be seen.

The first thing he managed to do was to repair the state of his clothes – removing innumerable stains, fixing countless tears, returning them to the colour they had been before they had long-since faded to a drab brown that may have matched the rest of the Underground, but certainly didn't suit this place. He changed their colours several times as it suited his whims, eventually settling on a deep shade of blue which matched the lake's waters. It took a while before he dared attempt to alter his own person. He spent hours staring at his own image reflected in the still surface of the water, trying to tell himself to change, watching without his features appearing to obey his commands. He had been staring idly into the water, remembering the Dream King's words, when it had happened – his hair had rearranged itself into an unruly halo and turned a deep, night-hued black from root to tip. He had experimented since then, trying out different looks like a courtier attending a masquerade ball might try on different masks. He toyed with the idea of making himself a larger, more fearsome goblin than any other, so he could go back to the castle and intimidate Gringol – the fate of his library in his absence did worry him slightly – but turning himself into an imitation of Snirick was most repugnant to him; the last thing he wanted was to turn himself into his own tormentors. He settled for making himself appear taller and older. In the unhealthy environs of the castle, underfed and neglected, his growth had been somewhat stunted; but living here where it was fresh and clean and food was in abundance, and with a bit of glamour to help him, he could easily appear to be at least eight-and-ten years old, a most mature age from his young viewpoint. He added to his own height and gradually made his clothes a little grander, remembering the regal figure the Dream King had made and wondering, since he was also royalty, if he would ever be able to emulate him.

It seemed like years before he even thought of the doorways again, though in actual fact it was only a few months. He looked around one day and noticed the black portal leading back into the oubliette. It made him start a little – like waking from a pleasant dream into an exceedingly grey, drab morning. Which was, more or less, what his previous existence had amounted to. But now, the words of the Dream King came back to him: _With your ability, these frames can become portals to any domain you may dream of visiting…_

He remembered all those hours spend pouring over various tomes, dreaming of foreign lands; even his mother had done so, spending hours describing to him places that neither of them had ever visited. Well, he had dreamed about it for all that time – how could he shrink from the opportunity, now that he could realize it? Hadn't his mother pined for just this ability? How could he knowingly squander it now? Surely, he just had to try it now…

He wasn't the same sad little whelp he had been when he had left the confines of the library. He was different now; and it wasn't just that he was well-fed, and wore better clothes, and looked taller and older now than he had before. Something else had changed. He was emboldened, keen to try things out – more than the mere ability to create lived-in dreams, he had acquired an eagerness to _live_.

He looked back only once, promising his lakeside paradise that he would return to it soon. Then he strode back into the darkness of the oubliette, closing the door behind him.

He held the crystal up, lighting it with a steady glow – it was one of the first tricks he had mastered – to illuminate his way. Despite his new-found courage, he had been rather wary of re-entering this dank prison; after all, it would be intimidating to anyone, under any circumstances. However, as he entered, he found that it wasn't as terrible as he had thought it was. The dark, closely-confined place nevertheless looked somehow cleaner and slightly bigger than it had before; most noticeably, all its skeletal occupants had now disappeared…

"Hey, he's back! The boy is back!"

A cacophony of chattering voices fell on him from above. He looked up and surveyed the hands that still protruded sinisterly from the walls above him.

"What do you want with me?" he asked them, in a voice that even he thought sounded like it belonged to a different person – it sounded older and braver than the goblin-child who had stuttered before Snirick and begged Gringol to spare his books.

"We want to thank you, compadré!"

"Yeah, thank ye, sonny!"

"Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts!"

"Oh, it's marvellous, what you've done for us!"

"What I did…?" he repeated querily.

"Why, you freed us, o' course!"

"All those horrible dreams – you took them away!"

"At last, the nightmares finally stopped!"

"They went away as soon as you arrived – vanished, just like that!"

"All those years of trying to forget, and you managed it right away!"

"You dreamed our dreams for us – all of us!"

"We were quite amazed – I mean, _all_ of us! What a feat! When one bad dream, one memory, was more than a match for just _one_ of us!"

There was a general murmur of agreement with this.

"And so," another voice piped up, "with you dreaming our fears for us, our fears couldn't be real any more, since they were just dreams now – so they went away completely."

"Gone, just like that. As though we all just suddenly woke up from them."

"And _you_ were the one that woke us up. You sent them away for us."

"Well done, boyo! Such a noble thing to do!"

"You are our saviour!"

"How can we ever repay you?"

"Yes – name your price! Whatever we can do for you, just name it!" Countless voices clamoured to agree, urging him to request a favour of his choosing.

Jareth considered this offer for a moment, wondering what he could possibly ask of them… after all, they _were_ just hands, and they were restricted to the oubliette's walls…

Then, inspiration struck him. "I'll tell you all what," he addressed them, feeling quite authoritative as he gave them his command: "if you want to repay me, do so by trying to help out anyone else who ends up in this hole – if they ask you to carry them back up and out again, do so, instead of just dragging them further in against their will, like you did before. You all know what it's like to be trapped down here; the least you can do is to help the unfortunate people who fall in here to get back out again. That's what you all would've wished for yourselves in the same situation. Will you all do that, for me?"

"Certainly!" came back the first reply.

"Assuredly, it will be done!"

"But naturally – with all the fears now gone, we don't want this place filling up with new ones."

"If it happens again, we'll do our best to get that person back out."

"We'll be well-and-proper 'helping hands'! Heh!"

"Yes," he answered, seizing upon the phrase, "be 'helping hands' in future. Do that for me."

A torrent of voices replied in the affirmative.

"What about you, sonny?" asked a low-lying hand. "Do you want a hand-up?"

"No, thank you," he declined politely, thinking what a stark contrast this was to the way they had treated him before. "I've got my own way out. Besides, I'll probably come and go through here from time to time. If I ever change me mind, though, I'll let you know."

And with that, feeling very accomplished - like a knight who had performed a noble deed - he left them chattering excitedly amongst themselves and turned his attention back to the chamber around him.

There were so many door frames – _which should I choose?_ he wondered to himself as he surveyed them all. They were of various shapes and sizes. Some were neat and symmetrical, some lopsided; they led out through every wall, and there were even several in the ceiling. He realized, though, that it didn't really matter which _frame_ he chose; he could place any dream behind whichever he selected, so long as he connected the portal to it. He carefully eased the door out of its current frame – it was lighter than it looked – fighting a mild sense of alarm as he saw that his lakeside 'home' had now been replaced by a solid stone wall. He manoeuvred the door into a new frame, then paused for a moment to make up his mind, wondering where he should dream of. He had spent so long dreaming of different places in the world – now he had a world of places he could choose from to visit. It was just a matter of choosing one place to visit _first_!

He very carefully composed his mind, imagining what would be on the other side of the wooden panelling as completely as he could. Then, dreaming it with all his might, hoping it would work for him as it had for Morpheus, he tightened his grip on the doorknob and, turning it, pulled it slowly open.

A whole other place was revealed before him, the vista stretching on as far as he could see. Taking a deep breath and drawing himself up as tall as he could, he passed through the door, stepping out into the dreamscape.

* * *

_Author's Note: I finally added a new chapter!_

_Sorry for the long delay since the last chapter, and sorry for the long delay that will likely follow. I'm working on numerous stories at once, and this one has been pushed towards the back of my repertoire, since it is such a long and involved one. However, I will try to add to it every so often, and I have a few other Labyrinth stories at the ready - one is a new one I've just started - which are open to perusal in the meantime._

_I'm not sure if the rat-in-the-maze is a legitamate science experiment, but it was an interesting basis for comparison!_

_Lines in this chapter are quoted from the_ manga Death: At Death's Door _by Jill Thompson, which in turn based on the _Seasons of the Mist _story arc from_ Sandman.


End file.
